Schools GAA

I was just thinking there earlier as to why this day and age is the Vocational school competition separate from the Colleges competitions?

Surely it would be of a better standard to merge the two? To be honest im in the dark as to whether there would be any cons to this so i would like posters to put their cases forward.

I went to a mixed Vocational school in rural Co Tipperary and has been a conveyor belt for the county.

Declan Fanning
Pat Kerwick
Liam Cahill
Paul Curran
Niall Curran
Paul Kelly
Eoin Kelly (1-3 year)
Donal Shelley
Paul Shelley
Joe Caesar
Michael Farrell
Vincent Doheny
Shane Long


Above are just some of the names that went on to play intercounty at some level for Tipperary (the ones in bold have played senior intercounty hurling with Niall Curran having played Senior football for Tipp). Yet there seems to be a perception that colleges hurling or football is the be all and end all and that its the highest standard of schools hurling.

I realise there is different administration involved but surely the powers that be could put their heads together and come up with something.
Granted there is alot of schools in the county both colleges and vocational but surely competition is about establishing who is the best and testing yourself against the very best that's out there?

If im missing a point here then fair enough ill gladly hold my hand up when someone shows me the error of my ways but at the moment im stumped as to why in 2013, the situation is the way it is.

68Murph68

tipp_Gunner wrote: »

I was just thinking there earlier as to why this day and age is the Vocational school competition separate from the Colleges competitions?

Surely it would be of a better standard to merge the two? To be honest im in the dark as to whether there would be any cons to this so i would like posters to put their cases forward.

Yet there seems to be a perception that colleges hurling or football is the be all and end all and that its the highest standard of schools hurling.

I realise there is different administration involved but surely the powers that be could put their heads together and come up with something.

Granted there is alot of schools in the county both colleges and vocational but surely competition is about establishing who is the best and testing yourself against the very best that's out there?

If im missing a point here then fair enough ill gladly hold my hand up when someone shows me the error of my ways but at the moment im stumped as to why in 2013, the situation is the way it is.

I think the answer as to why there is two competitions is down to historical reasons. Basically the competitions were set up separately and havent gotten around to merging. I'd imagine a lot of this is down to the fact that the head honchos on the vocational side of things would gain nothing and lose a lot by joining up the with the colleges side of things. Like yourself I'd be in favour of a merge but I think that as long as there are some with a vested interest in maintaining the vocational side of things, there won't be any change.

In terms of why the colleges competitions would be seen as the best/stronger, I think its because the vast majority of inter-county players would have played colleges as opposed to vocational. Sure the vocational side of things will produce some players but when the majority are coming from colleges football, it's hard to argue it isnt the stronger competition.

I remember having a discussion about Kerry football and the standard in the vocational schools in Kerry has gone back a long way. I also heard something about some schools wanting to switch from the vocational side of things to the colleges side of things. (Not sure how this operates/operated but from what I heard there was a good few schools in Cork who had done this)

platypus

afaik there is going to be a merging of the two school systems at senior A level in leinster next year (for football anyway), and some merging has already taken at other levels. Someone else may have better details, Im not too sure of any of this

Operating under two different competitions seems outdated and pointless to me

bruschi

68Murph68 wrote: »

I think the answer as to why there is two competitions is down to historical reasons. Basically the competitions were set up separately and havent gotten around to merging. I'd imagine a lot of this is down to the fact that the head honchos on the vocational side of things would gain nothing and lose a lot by joining up the with the colleges side of things. Like yourself I'd be in favour of a merge but I think that as long as there are some with a vested interest in maintaining the vocational side of things, there won't be any change.

In terms of why the colleges competitions would be seen as the best/stronger, I think its because the vast majority of inter-county players would have played colleges as opposed to vocational. Sure the vocational side of things will produce some players but when the majority are coming from colleges football, it's hard to argue it isnt the stronger competition.

I remember having a discussion about Kerry football and the standard in the vocational schools in Kerry has gone back a long way. I also heard something about some schools wanting to switch from the vocational side of things to the colleges side of things. (Not sure how this operates/operated but from what I heard there was a good few schools in Cork who had done this)

this is definitely an argument for why there has been no change. Being honest, and looking on it in particular from a Wexford point of view, I wouldnt think that if they merged, vocational schools, in the majority, would be competetive with the colleges schools. There is also the vocational county competetion too, and I know when I was in school, we played on of the AI finalists that year and beat them pretty easily in a challenge game. Now I know it was just a challenge game, but still it wasnt just one school, it was the county merger of the vocational sides who had a very succesful year. The colleges have a name in most counties as being the best schools to go to for GAA, and this has a bearing on where a lot of kids choose to go to. Only have to mention names like Flannans, Kierans, Jarlaths, Mels and people know who you are talking about.

The vocational schools would lose out on their own competitions and having their schools get pretty decent recognition in their own right. Merge them in, and they will lose out on that.

nice_guy80

some vocational schools are very small

some counties have very few vocational schools

lala88

68Murph68 wrote: »

I think the answer as to why there is two competitions is down to historical reasons. Basically the competitions were set up separately and havent gotten around to merging. I'd imagine a lot of this is down to the fact that the head honchos on the vocational side of things would gain nothing and lose a lot by joining up the with the colleges side of things. Like yourself I'd be in favour of a merge but I think that as long as there are some with a vested interest in maintaining the vocational side of things, there won't be any change.

In terms of why the colleges competitions would be seen as the best/stronger, I think its because the vast majority of inter-county players would have played colleges as opposed to vocational. Sure the vocational side of things will produce some players but when the majority are coming from colleges football, it's hard to argue it isnt the stronger competition.

I remember having a discussion about Kerry football and the standard in the vocational schools in Kerry has gone back a long way. I also heard something about some schools wanting to switch from the vocational side of things to the colleges side of things. (Not sure how this operates/operated but from what I heard there was a good few schools in Cork who had done this)

I know you said football but in hurling terms most player on Galway minor teams come from Vocational Schools

premierstone

lala88 wrote: »

I know you said football but in hurling terms most player on Galway minor teams come from Vocational Schools

Yeah Galway is very much the exception though, back when the intercounty vocational was taken somewhat seriously (don't even know if they play it anymore) it was always two of Galway, Tipp and Cork in the final.

locked

hurling ones are merging together next year

Clareman

There is a historical difference in Ireland between Vocational School and "Colleges", in a lot of towns the Vocational School would be known as the Tech, I believe (open to correction on this) that the Vocational schools were setup to try to ensure that everyone got an education until they were 16 but also realise that not all educations are booked based, a lot of Vocational schools would have ran apprenticeship type education systems, especially in the likes of woodwork. Colleges we usually boarding schools as well.

When competitions started there would have been a vast difference between "Tech" schools and "Colleges" as the "Techs" would have had more country and physically strong players, but also younger, Vocational schools would also be a lot smaller as there would be more of them dotted around the place, so you had the situation where some "Techs" were struggling to field a team being destroyed by "Colleges" and others were a lot stronger and were destroying "Colleges", "Techs" went down the route of having county teams whereas "Colleges" benefited from having players from all over the country on their teams didn't want to lose out, so the 2 educational systems went down the route of running their own competitions.

It didn't help either that both "Colleges" and "Techs" teachers had different Trade Unions so it wouldn't also have been easy to have a proper discussion to decide how to improve things, in fact there was often a "them and us" mentality between teachers from rivalling schools.

Of course this has changed and a lot of "Techs" now aren't even regarded as such and pretty much all schools are equal, for example Castletroy College in Limerick is technically a "Tech" as it's under the control of the VEC, full list of "Techs" can be found here.

GMAN94

Would anybody know any of the fixtures for the connacht intercounty vocational schools football championship? I'm actually on the galway squad this year but there hasn't been one match yet!