Saturday, April 02, 2011

Appointment of chairperson for Forum on School Patronage welcomed

The Council for Education of the Irish Episcopal Conference has welcomed the appointment of Dr John Coolahan as Chairperson of the Advisory Group for the Forum on School Patronage.

Dr Coolahan, a Professor Emeritus of NUI Maynooth, is to be assisted in his role by Dr Caroline Hussey, former Registrar and Deputy President of University College Dublin as well as Fionnuala Kilfeather, former chief executive of the National Parents’ Council for primary schools.

The announcement of Dr Coolahan’s appointment was made by the Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn, on Monday and follows his recent announcement that he would work with Church representatives to address the over representation of the Church in the provision of primary education through a Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector.

The Minister has also said he wants to see at least half the schools currently under Church patronage move to an alternative guardianship. 

In their statement on Monday, the Council for Education said that, in response to the publication of data on Catholic school patronage by the Department of Education in August 2010, the Catholic Schools Partnership, which was established by the Irish Episcopal Conference and the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI), had undertaken a detailed process of research and consultation.

“This has involved further analysis of parental understanding of school patronage, the preparation of a position paper on Catholic schools, which will be published next week, and ongoing consultation within the Church with various stakeholders,” the Council of Education’s said.  The results of this consultation are to be analysed at four regional assemblies in June with representatives from all dioceses.

Saying it looked forward to being an active participant in the Forum on Patronage, the Council noted Minister Quinn’s comments on the need for an orderly process that respects all of the sensitivities involved.

Two weeks’ ago, Cardinal Seán Brady welcomed the Minster’s announcement of the Forum but underlined that there needed to be “dialogue and discussion about how that change may be effected fairly in the interests of all concerned.”

Meanwhile, the Director of Education at CORI, Sr Canice Hanrahan, RSM, told ciNews that it is important to recognise that “Catholic educators have great things to offer” and that some of these include not just quality of education but “the pastoral care of pupils, concern for their futures, concern for their spiritual, emotional and physical and educational development”.  

These, she said, are “at the core of Catholic education.”

However, she regrets that “the awful things that have happened in our Church take away from all the good things that are happening and continue to happen” in schools.

Describing the current and proposed changes in the area of education, she said there is “a whole reorganisation” going on in the area of patronage. 

“We are in a state of flux, but very much aware of the change in the state of the world generally and the change in the country particularly as well as the change in the whole language and attitude of Church.”  

The Mercy Sister, who is set to retire from her position as Director of Education at CORI in June, said, “Catholic schools have to be about advancing the common good”.

She warned that the current government was likely to “pursue more vigorously” the issue of smaller schools, such as those with enrolments of less than fifty pupils.

“We have more schools per capita than any other European country due to historical factors,” she explained.  

This, she said resulted from the need for local parishes to provides schools within walking distance of their pupils in pre-car days.  

However, this is less of an issue now when most parents drove to work and dropped their children to schools close to their place of work, often bypassing small local parish schools.

“I think this government will push hard to close and reduce the number of primary schools,” Sr Hanrahan said.  

This, she explained would result in the Church, which is patron of 92 per cent of all primary schools in the country currently ceding patronage in some instances where schools may be amalgamated.