By Claire Corrigan
Athlone Institute of Technology is the most popular college among Westmeath students. That’s according to a recent Irish Independent feature which gave a school-by-school breakdown of the number of pupils enrolled in higher education.
The tables in the 16-page supplement by the newspaper provided details of almost 700 schools and over 30 third level colleges, including universities, institutes of technology and teacher training colleges
AIT saw 124 Westmeath students from outside the town begin a programme at the college in September. Maynooth University was not far behind with 111 school leavers opting for the Kildare based college.
NUI Galway, which is always a popular choice among Westmeath students, came in third with a respectable 84 students deciding to head west.
The figures placed St. Finian’s College, Mullingar in a favourable light, stating that 87 per cent of its students went on to third-level education this year. The school’s principal, Fr. Paul O’Connell said the data, which was gathered by the CSO, needs to be approached with caution. “The figures that appear in the paper are generally completely false. If a school provides Leaving Cert Applied (LCA), none of their numbers count so you’ll see some anomalies where a school has 100 per-cent of their cohort going to third level and that never applies. It is my understanding that if a student takes a year off, they count as a negative. Students that go into the cadetes, farm colleges, apprenticeships or PLC courses, which are just as important a career move as third level education, are ignored. These figures are completely misinterpreted and therefore should be treated with extreme caution.”
Moate Community School topped the poll for the percentage of students who went on to attend college at a very impressive 99 per- cent while Loreto College, also faired well with 74 per- cent of their Leaving Cert. students marked down as progressing to third level education.
Guidance Counsellor in Loreto College, Mullingar, Sinead Hyland spoke with Topic about the results. “Unfortunately, PLC courses are not taken into consideration but well over 99 percent of our students are either in further or higher education. As a school we have maintained contact with as many of our past students as possible. In January of this year I will be helping a number of our students, who are doing PLC courses, reapply through the CAO to ensure they get into their third level institution course of choice.”
The President of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, Betty McLoughlin who is also the Career Guidance Teacher at Coláiste Mhuire, Mullingar, told Topic that the data provided by the tables was unlikely to be completely accurate. “If you take a class of say 20 students and put it alongside a school with 179 students, then already we are at a great disadvantage. There’s a lot of issues about it. For example in our school we don’t get credit for the repeat Leaving Cert that we take on who do very well with a lot of them achieving over 500 points. It’s their former school that gets the credit.”
