Hundreds of new school building projects and more than 60,000 additional school places will be provided over the next six years to keep pace with Ireland’s baby boom.
Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan is set to announce details of 310 major building projects on Tuesday, including new schools and the expansion of existing facilities.
The announcement comes against a backdrop of high birth rates which will see numbers rising until 2018 for primary school, after which they are forecast to reduce.
This peak figure of 574,000 primary school places was last seen in the early 1980s.
Secondary school enrolments are also projected to rise until 2025, at which point numbers are set to reach in excess of 400,000 pupils for the first time in the history of the State.
In all, the school building plan will provide for 19,000 additional primary school places and 43,000 additional second level school places over the next six years.
The Government estimates it will cost almost €3 billion for the 310 building projects, as well as acquiring land, investing in digital technology and other maintenance works.
Special school projects
A total of 156 of the major building works will be at primary level, while 124 will be at second level. An additional 30 special school projects are included in the overall figure.
Ireland had the highest birth rate in the European Union last year, latest figures show. There were 14.4 babies born per 1,000 residents in the State last year, compared to an EU average of 10.1.
The provision of school places over the coming years is based on migration and fertility projections. The Department of Education is projecting a return to net inward migration by 2019, and a gradual decline in fertility.
Notwithstanding Ireland’s high birth rate in EU terms, the fertility rate – the average expected number of children a woman is likely to have in her lifetime – has been falling in recent years.
While it reached 2.09 in 2010, it fell to 1.95 in 2014. Under the department’s projections, it is likely to reach a level of 1.8 by 2024 and remain fairly constant from that point onwards.
In the meantime, the number of additional children born over recent years is posing a challenge for pre-school, health and education services.
