THE Catholic Church is being told to hand over
another 23 primary schools in an historic shake-up of the eduction
system designed to offer parents more choice.Department of Education surveys in 43 towns and suburbs over the past six months found that two-thirds of parents wanted a more diverse range of schools -- meaning a reduction of the church's overwhelming dominance of school patronage.
Mr Quinn is now overseeing a period of massive change within the schools system as the issues of patronage and small rural schools both come to a head.
His department now wants detailed proposals from the bishops on divesting schools within six months, in a significant shift towards multi-denominational education.
But early transfers do not appear on the cards after a senior Catholic Church educationalist questioned the calculations involved.
Surveys in 38 areas were undertaken in January-February among parents of children under the age of 12.
They were targeted at towns and suburbs where there is a relatively stable population and, therefore, little prospect of an additional school being built.
The demand for a change of patronage at 23 of these 38 primary schools is on top of five schools around the country which were previously identified by the department, and where the Church has already been told to transfer control.
The
department will now be contacting the Catholic patron in each of the
newly identified areas to request that they consider the options.
Mr
Quinn said he was confident of a generous response from the existing
patron – the local Catholic bishop in each of the areas – to "the clear
demand for change".
In practical terms, it means that in
any of these areas, where there may be several local Catholic schools,
mergers will be necessary to free up a building for a school under
different patronage.
Where change is favoured, the
multi-denominational Educate Together is the top choice and has been
nominated as the patron for 25 schools, including in the five areas
previously identified.
Two towns will see the
establishment of English language, new-style Community National Schools,
run by the local Vocational Education Committee.
And in
one area, an Irish language school under the patronage of An Foras
Patrunachta is recommended.
Most of the areas surveyed already had a
Gaelscoil option for parents deemed capable of accommodating demand for
Irish language medium schools.
Paul Rowe, of Educate Together, said the results clearly showed demand for diversity of school type exists across the country.
Conclusions
However,
while 10,000 responses were gathered, Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic
Schools Partnership said the participation rates of parents in the
surveys were low. He said that within each area the responses only
varied from 13pc to 26pc and advised against drawing conclusions.
He said there was a need for much closer analysis of the figures and consultation with communities on the ground
For
example, Fr Drumm said in Ballina, where the department is recommending
an Educate Together school, parents of only 2.2pc of existing primary
pupils expressed a preference for an English-language
multi-denominational school.
And he warned the proposals
could involve much greater displacement for pupils in an existing school
than those the department is seeking to accommodate.
The Catholic Church controls about 2,840, or 90pc, of almost 3,200 primary schools in Ireland.
While
the 28 schools earmarked for change represent less than 1pc of this,
developments over the coming months will be closely watched as they
could mark a watershed in Church-state relations over school patronage.
The
department set the minimum enrolment sufficient for a four-teacher
school as the benchmark for deciding on whether there was sufficient
demand for change.
A total of 10,715 valid responses were
received during the surveys, and were checked against data held by the
Department of Social Protection to ensure that the children listed were
linked to PPS numbers given.
It followed the five pilot
surveys, which were conducted last October and November – all of which
showed a demand for Educate Together schools.