Students picket and primary school pupils are kept home in protest to retain Newport Secondary School.
The coeducational Newport Secondary School in County Mayo opened in 1956. Prior to the summer holidays in 1968, the school had 90 pupils. The Department of Education has taken the decision to close school on the grounds that it is not taking in enough pupils to make it a viable proposition.
Newport Secondary School opened for its final year on 3 September 1968 to cater for the 20 students enrolled in Intermediate and Leaving Certificate classes. It is proposed the school will finally close after the examinations in June 1969.
The students in other classes are now expected to avail of the free bus transport facilities to attend schools in Westport.
For the last nine months, parents of pupils at the school have been campaigning to retain the Newport Secondary School. Now they are taking a more dramatic course in staging a strike. Parents have been keeping all of their children from primary school since 9 September.
Buses arriving at Main Street in Newport are picketed by students with placards with slogans reading 'Newport School or no school'; ‘Our Newport catchment area was gerrymandered’; ‘Strike for our own secondary school’.
Chairperson of the parents’ committee Jim O’Donnell believes the people of Newport are,
Entitled to get their share of the education.
Newport parents are calling for a new comprehensive school to be built and they will not accept anything less.
In response to the strike action, a senior official of the Department of Education will be arriving in Newport to meet with committee members in the coming days.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 13 September 1968. The reporter is Kevin O’Kelly.
