Monday, April 04, 2011

Pressure building toward progress

Ruairí Quinn’s moves to transfer some Catholic schools to other patrons has been well received.

THE targets may be ambitious but Education Minister Ruairi Quinn’s signal soon after being appointed last month that he wants to see half the primary schools under Catholic control transferred to other patrons has been warmly greeted.

The Catholic bishops, who are patrons to 90% of the country’s 3,165 primary schools, have welcomed the Forum on Patronage and Plurality in Primary Schools and agreed to participate and some of the impetus has already come from within the hierarchy.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said that while the transfer of primary schools from the patronage of the Catholic hierarchy will face opposition, it is time for movement.

The brief set out by the minister requires the forum to have regard to the Catholic church’s expressed willingness to consider divesting patronage of primary schools.

Although Archbishop Martin has been to the fore, many of his counterparts are understood to be equally open to the idea of divesting their patronage where there is a clear need for greater choice for families in areas with few if any non-Catholic schools.

The outcome of consultations to date in some of the 43 such areas already identified by the Department of Education — at the Catholic Church’s request — is likely to be outlined in a position paper on the situation to be published by the bishops next week.

The question on the minds of many couples, particularly those planning children or whose children are reaching schoolgoing age, is what choices will be on offer.

As National Parents Council-Primary (NCP-P) chief executive Áine Lynch pointed out this week, it may not be possible in smaller communities to offer a choice beyond the local Catholic primary school and arrangements that respect the belief systems of all pupils must be standardised. While there has been praise for the accommodating nature of Catholic schools catering for many years for diverse pupil populations, this question will have to be considered by the forum.

However, the bigger question may be around the method of selecting which schools could be divested to other patrons in those places where there is scope to do so.

Mr Quinn hints at the need for bishops to hand over school premises in the forum’s terms of reference, highlighting the restrictions in his department on funding for new buildings and the need to make maximum use of existing infrastructure for future demand.

The department’s report last August identified dozens of towns where there are a handful or more primary schools but none with a multi-denominational ethos.

In Clonmel, Co Tipperary, for example, there were seven primary schools and the population grew by less than 1% between 2002 and 2006. So with little likelihood of a new school being established, there could be sufficient demand for a school to cater for non-Catholic children.

Under the Catholic Schools Partnership (CSP), an organisation set up by the Bishops’ Council for Education and the Conference of Religious in Ireland, research and consultations have taken place in many of these communities where there may be potential to divest.

They have been coy about releasing details on the process ahead of next week’s publication, apart from saying that it has involved further analysis of parental understanding of school patronage and ongoing consultation within the Church with various stakeholders.

But CSP chairperson Fr Michael Drumm told the Irish Examiner last August that considerations in any such decisions will include local demand.

He said the views of prospective parents and those whose children have already left the school system would be taken into account, along with the opinions of current pupils’ families.

The bishops’ education council plans to analyse the outcomes of the research to date at a series of regional meetings in June with representatives from all Catholic diocese in the country.

But Mr Quinn wants the question of deciding where and how to reduce the number of Catholic schools to be addressed much more quickly.

Announcing the forum, to be chaired by former NUI Maynooth education professor John Coolahan, he spoke about wanting a report in October and the divesting process getting under way next January.

A source in one key stakeholder organisation described this time-scale — as well as the target of half of Catholic schools being handed over — as "wildly optimistic" but added that it might be no harm to set the bar high to keep up the pressure for progress.

Of course, in the absence of legislation or regulations, any such transfer of schools can only be a voluntary exercise by the bishops.

Fr Drumm has said that part of the exercise should be to clarify how multi-denominational and non-denominational schools are defined so parents know what the options available to them are.

These are intricacies which may be examined in closer detail if, and as, communities are faced with having to choose or express a favoured type of ethos for a new school to replace a Catholic one.

But the next dilemma may be who to appoint as patron, with the last government keen on the city and county vocational education committees (VECs) becoming participants in primary education, and leaders in the VEC sector appear equally anxious to widen their role.

Since the first pilot VEC primary school was announced by then education minister Mary Hanafin in 2007, five such pilot schools now operate in Dublin, Kildare and Meath.

However, questions remain as to what further progress, if any, will be made on legislation introduced by Mr Quinn’s predecessor Mary Coughlan last year to allow VECs become primary patrons.

Educate Together is keen to continue the patronage role it has undertaken widely in dozens of communities in recent years, so there need be no concerns about a lack of interest in taking over the educational role of the Catholic Church in communities where demand exists.

The real question in all of this is whether the minister can really get — and keep — this ball rolling and achieve meaningful progress to allow a greater reflection of our changed society in the structure of the primary school system — something Ms Lynch in the parents’ council is anxious to see.

"You can put things off and off and a whole generation of children will have passed through a system that people have acknowledged just isn’t the best," she said.