Saturday, November 06, 2010

State urged to manage schools

The social campaigner Sister Stanislaus Kennedy has urged the Catholic Church in Ireland to begin to disengage from managing schools. 

Sr Stanislaus Kennedy has told a conference in Dublin that it should be left to the state to 
provide schooling for a diverse and multi-faith society.

Speaking at a Royal Irish Academy event Sister Stan said that our society was now a diverse one and that it was no longer appropriate that most schools were under church management.
She continued, it was the role of the state to provide education for our children regardless of their faith.

Sr Kennedy said that the church's task was to spread its faith, ethos and values while recognising the ethos and values of other religions and faiths. She said it had a proud record in education.

She criticised the Government for rejecting almost half the applications for citizenship that it receives saying that Britain and Australia had a 90% acceptance rate. 

Sr Kennedy said that those who had been lawfully resident in the Republic for five years were eligible to apply but that often those applicants who were rejected by the Minister for Justice were not told why.

President Mary McAleese told the gathering that, for the first time, the country had a cohort of immigrants who were steeped in the languages and cultures of the countries we hoped to export to. And she said they would attract foreign investment here.

SIC: RTE/IE