"This is a slight on students, parents, teachers and staff who are part of these communities"

LIMERICK teacher and Aontú Representative for Castletroy Eric Nelligan has disparaged the Minister for Higher Education Patrick O'Donovan for “unfairly” linking single-sex schools to rising levels of gender-based violence. “This is a slur against students, parents, teachers, staff and alumni of single sex schools,” he stated.

Mr Nelligan said the attack came not long after the labour party introduced a Bill which would see all single-sex schools in the primary system phased out within ten years, and within 15 years in post primary.

“What Minister O'Donovan is basically doing is he's implying that boys and girls that attend single- sex schools are more likely to be aggressive or participate in, or have gender, gender-based inappropriate ideals,” said the local teacher. “He's implying that staff and teachers that work in single sex schools are in some way promoting or not tackling aggression and gender based violence.”

Mr Nelligan, himself an Assistant Principal in an all-male school, said: "The attack from a Minister in the Department of Education coupled with the Labour party Bill is the latest in a series of efforts to attack single-sex schools and remove them from Irish education.

In a recent interview with the Irish Examiner, Minister O'Donovan said that he wants to see an end to single-sex schools and that "society would be better" with a co-educational model of learning.

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Expressing his unease around increasing “aggression” and gender-based violence, Minister O'Donovan emphasised the importance of educational integration from a young age. "If the first time that you come in contact with somebody from the opposite gender in your education journey is your first day in university at Freshers Week, that to me is absolutely crazy in 2024.”

Mr Nelligan said here is “no evidence” to show that single sex schools in Ireland lead to the accusations made. “In this era where the importance of accurate factual information is put into the public domain these comments by Minister O'Donovan are deeply concerning.”

He explained: “There is not one piece of research or data anywhere in the world to support the Patrick O’Donovan view. The World Health Organisation, WHO, conducted intensive research and concluded that several factors can be associated with gender and domestic abuse, 16 reasons were listed, alcohol overuse being the main factor, and single sex education was nowhere on the list.”

Mr Nelligan remarked that Ireland has the 22nd highest rate of students in single sex schools in the EU but it has the lowest rate of homicides against females, in the world.

“In an era when the citizens of the country demand more choice and less authoritarianism from those in government it is disappointing that Minister O’Donovan would seek to remove a valid parental choice for their child’s education. There is no educational logic to this call, it boils down to a flawed ideological viewpoint about the root cause of ‘toxic’ personality traits and the desire by those in government to decide what are acceptable educational institutions,” concluded the Limerick teacher.

Minister O'Donovan was contacted for comment but was unavailable for interview.