Technical education provision pre-dated the Vocational Education Act 1930 in Roscommon Town. From 1927 onwards Domestic Science, Commerce and Woodwork were being delivered in Harrison Hall however the 1930 Act provided funding to expand the number of subjects being delivered and provide for a new accommodation and eventually a CEO to coordinated technical education in the county. The purchase of land in Lanesboro St. in 1934 for the sum of £150 meant that a new school could be built in Roscommon Town and on Thursday September 3rd 1937 Roscommon Vocational School was blessed by Rev. Fr. O’Reilly and officially opened it doors to 109 young people of RoscommonTown and its environs. A significant milestone for vocational education came in 1943 when the Department of Education provided it with its own examination – the Group Certificate. The school continued to grow throughout this period and the introduction of free education in the late 1960’s encouraged the development of a Leaving Certificate Programme that was offered in the school in 1976. The consequential increase in student numbers meant that by the early 1980’s, the school had become to small to facilitate all its functions. It was decided that a new purpose built school needed to be established to meet the needs of the young people in the town and consequently land was purchased on the outskirts of the town and a state of the art school was built that incorporated playing fields, a working farm, metal and woodwork rooms, science laboratories and modern classrooms together with a general purpose room and a canteen.
Vocational education continued to develop in Ireland and by the 2000’s it was clear that technical education was being delivered side by side with more academic subjects. To reflect this shift in emphasis it was decided to rename the school and in September 2005, the school officially opened as Roscommon Community College. Since this time, the school population has increased substantially and this meant that two new classrooms were built in 2013.
The Department of Education has sanctioned the building of four new classrooms for the academic year 2014/2015 and our school population this year will be 320.
In 2013 the old Vocational Education Committee was replaced with an Education and Training Board and Roscommon VEC amalgamated with Galway VEC to become the Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board.
