Up until recent years fewer than 30 per cent of children on Tory Island did the Leaving Cert and more than half never sat the Junior Cert. A review of a scheme aimed at changing those statistics will be unveiled today by the Minister for Education.
The "Consortium Based Approach to Educational Disadvantage" scheme was run in a number of Border counties and received funding from the EU's programme for peace and reconciliation.
In Donegal, the Balor initiative focused on two groups of eight- to 15-year-olds at risk of leaving school early - those on Tory Island and their mainland neighbours on the Ballina estate in Falcarragh, where many Tory families resettled about 10 years ago. The Balor initiative was an idea to provide the children with extra-curricular activities such as art, drama, computer studies and horticulture with the aim of increasing their self-confidence and interest in education. It worked, according to the principal of Tory's secondary school, now in its second year. "The whole island was buzzing for the whole of the year," says Mary Clare McMahon.
Besides bringing in teachers for the different courses some locals were involved, such as painters who taught art classes. The opening of the island's secondary school was the most important development in recent years in terms of keeping Tory children at school. Having opened in September 1999, it now has five teachers and 15 pupils in first and second years. Before it opened children as young as 12 had to go to school on the mainland, only getting home for holidays. Ms McMahon is a native of Derry, who returned to the island to take up the job of principal of the new school having previously taught in Tory's primary school. Teachers are required to live on the island so they are very much part of the community. Mr Freddie Coll, of the Gaeltacht Partnership, said the scheme brought together young people from the island and those on the Ballina estate.
"The two groups had a lot in common but it was also like mixing two cultures - those who grew up on the island and those who grew up on the estate which has more than 100 families," he said.