To judge from the coverage of this issue over the
last few years, one could be forgiven for thinking that there exists in
the country huge demand for alternatives to Catholic education.We now know this is emphatically not the case.
The Department of Education has just released the results of a survey of the parents of more than 60,000 primary school children in 38 parts of the country.
It would be misleading to claim that the survey shows very strong, widespread and ardent support for Catholic education.
But as the purpose of the survey was to find out how many parents want to see Catholic schools in their localities transferred to new patrons it is absolutely accurate to say there is very little real desire among parents to see such a change take place.
If there was widespread dissatisfaction with the predominance of Catholic schools and a great desire to see a new type of school on offer, we would expect that most parents would have taken part in the survey.
In fact, only about a fifth do so on average.
Clearly the vast majority of parents either want to send their children to Catholic schools or don't mind doing so.
But even among those who did take part, the desire for non-Catholic education was smaller than many people had anticipated, myself included.
Take Celbridge, Co Kildare, for example where there are almost 2,500 children currently in primary school.
The survey found that the number of children who would be transferred to an "English medium multi-denominational school if that choice was available" is a mere 64, or 2.5pc of the total.
To a somewhat greater or lesser extent the Celbridge figures are repeated in all 38 areas.
The highest number of children that would be transferred to an "English medium multi-denominational school if that choice was available" is 7.9pc in Portmarnock, north Co Dublin.
The Department of Education reckons there is enough demand in the 38 locations to justify 28 schools being transferred from Catholic patronage to other patron bodies.
That sounds like a lot until you realise there are 306 Catholic schools in those areas.
So
to put it another way, there is only enough demand from parents to
justify at most the transfer of 9pc of those schools to alternative
patron bodies like Educate Together or the VEC.
Therefore,
demand for non-Catholic schools has been completely exaggerated by
media reporting, especially by RTE which seems to have a fixation with
Educate Together. Is this because the sort of person who supports
Educate Together is over-represented among journalists?
One hopes that
when RTE is reporting this issue in the future it will make sure to
report the reality that there is very little demand from parents for
alternatives to Catholic schools and interview a few more parents who
actually like Catholic schools.
The needs of the small
minority of parents who want to send their children to a non-Catholic
school must be catered for, of course.
But this latest survey
demonstrates that their needs can be catered for by transferring in the
38 latest areas surveyed, a relative handful of schools.
This finding is likely to be repeated in practically every other area to be surveyed in the months ahead.
By
rights the results of the survey should also enormously lessen the
pressure on Catholic schools to weaken their ethos so as to cater for
all those parents who supposedly don't like sending their children to
Catholic schools.
We now know there are not many such
parents and their demands will in most cases be met by the transfer of
roughly 10pc of Catholic schools to the likes of Educate Together.
The
remaining 90pc of Catholic schools must then be allowed to retain their
ethos and Education Minister Ruairi Quinn should have neither hand,
act, nor part in passing any laws aimed at weakening that ethos.
If
he insists on weakening the ethos of denominational schools, through
watering down the protections afforded to them under the Employment
Equality Act for example, it will be ideologically driven and the
Catholic Church should under those circumstances transfer not a single
school to new patrons.
Our Education Minister must
realise that his department's survey has proved that the level of
parental opposition to Catholic schools, as distinct from ideological
opposition, is grossly exaggerated.
PS: Actor Gabriel Byrne reckons the Catholic Church is a "force for evil".
Today
members of this wicked church will be helping out people struggling to
make ends meet via the Society of St Vincent de Paul: feeding the
homeless via Crosscare; counselling women facing crisis pregnancies via
Cura; counselling couples whose marriages are in trouble via Accord; and
helping alcohol and drug addicts to get their lives back on track via
the likes of Cuan Mhuire.
So many acts of evil.