A non-fee-paying Malahide (Co Dublin) secondary school sends more students to the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) than some of the top private schools in the country, latest figures have revealed.
This year, Pobail Scoil Íosa in Malahide sent 34 students to DIT - which is more than well-known private schools such as Belvedere College (30), Wesley College (30) and CBC Monkstown (28).
This indicates that DIT is succeeding in attracting a significant number of students from the free school sector to its courses.
However, the Institute of Education "grind school" dominates the feeder school list with 99 students, while other so-called grind schools such as Ashfield College and Bruce College also feature prominently.
But 12 of the top 20 schools which sent students to DIT this year operate within the free school sector.
Schools such as Pobal Scoil Íosa, Dominican College in Co Kildare and St Benildus College in Dublin all send a large number of students to the college.
Others which feature prominently include Ashbourne Community School in Co Meath, Portmarnock Community School in Co Dublin and Castleknock Community College in Dublin.
The figures relate to the top 20 feeder schools sending pupils to DIT and they show for the first time the percentage of students from each school who entered DIT this year.
When expressed as a percentage of Leaving Cert exam students, St Laurence's College in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, CBC Monkstown and the Dominican College in Kildare all feature strongly. Each of these schools send at least a quarter of their students to DIT.
However, several of the private fee-paying schools also send a higher proportion of their students to DIT than Pobail Scoil Íosa. The majority of top feeder schools supplying DIT are located within Dublin itself. Just three are from outside Dublin: Dominican College, Ashbourne Community School and Colaiste na Toirbhirte, Bray, Co Wicklow.
DIT has a student population of more than 20,000 in its six faculties, which are located in over 30 different sites across the city.
It is currently preparing to transfer its activities to a new 65-acre campus at Grangegorman, Dublin, at an expected cost of some €750 million. It hopes that the necessary legislation to allow for this - currently before the Dáil - will come through all relevant stages by Easter.
Once this is done, it aims to welcome a "significant number" of its students to the new campus, which borders Phibsboro, Broadstone and Manor Street in north Dublin, by the 2008 academic year. The remainder will follow by 2012.
In preparation for the move, DIT, whose president is Prof Brian Norton, has been focusing on the development of cross-disciplinary courses which help to facilitate the creation of an integrated institute. It also plans to introduce a modular system for all courses from next year, aimed at offering students more choice and variety.
DIT points out that where a student has attended more than one school for senior cycle, that student has been counted for each school attended. This means that if a student sits a Leaving Certificate and repeats it in another school, he/she is counted in the figures for both schools.