Devenish College
EIGHT TEACHING jobs are to be lost at Devenish College in Enniskillen, the Fermanagh Herald can reveal.
The school, which was part of a merger with Lisnaskea High School in 2013, has been forced to make cuts following what is known as the ‘collective agreement’ or the school’s ‘reorganisation agreement’.
The chairman of the board of governors of Devenish College, Alex Baird, revealed to the Fermanagh Herald today (Wednesday), that the cost-cutting measures meant the loss of ‘essentially eight individuals’ on the teaching staff.
He said: “Following the merger of Lisnaskea High School and Devenish College, what was called the collective agreement, the school’s reorganisation agreement, was brought into force – which is the norm after any merger of schools.
“That protects all teachers jobs for two years, but then there is a requirement to rationalise and look at costs and live within budget.
“And unfortunately as a result of that, we have to reduce our teaching compliment from 40.2 full time equivalent down to 32. So it’s an eight point two reduction in jobs. It’s 8.2 jobs.”
Mr Baird said that the board will be working to ensure that compulsory redundancies are kept to a minimum.
“We will do everything in our power to ensure either voluntary or transferred redundancies are achieved. We don’t want to see anyone go through a compulsory redundancy.
“There’s the transferred redundancy situation where other schools have people retiring and they notify the board – and people who are being made redundant can apply for a transferred redundancy.”
The Fermanagh Herald has contacted the Western Education and Library Board for a response.
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