Catholic Education will remain “as a creative partner alongside others” in playing “a changed but significant role in Irish education". So said Catholic Archbishop Diarmuid Martin at a major Department of Education Conference in Dublin yesterday.
He stressed he had “no ambition to be patron of Catholic primary schools “beyond the number required to respond to the desire of parents who wish their children to attend such schools".
The archbishop was happy to “expand the role of other patronage models” and go through a “structured divestment by the Catholic patron” depending on their wishes.
The contribution of the Catholic Church in education was something more fundamental and enduring than just the current structures, he said.
“The Catholic Church is involved in education because, driven by convictions drawn from the teaching of Jesus Christ. It has a fundamental commitment to the good of people, especially young people and to their right to education in the fullest sense.”
The archbishop acknowledged that what was done in the name of the Catholic Church in education in the past was not always what should have been done.
“In some cases, I am ashamed of what happened. But I am also proud of what has been achieved, especially by truly great teachers,” he added.
The origins of the presence of religious orders in education in Ireland were linked to commitment to the poor and excluded, said Dr Martin, This work was continued today by many retired religious sisters, who “are out there in the new realities of the developing areas of the city providing education to families with poor language skills.”
The archbishop repeated that he would be unhappy if Catholic schools were to become “mainly elitist.”
There was an emergency in education, he said, pointing to constrained public spending, but it was not just a matter of balancing the books in economic terms.
“ We also have an obligation to best balance the other books also: to see how we can best bring about a correspondence between the real needs of the coming generations and the services that we provide.”
At the highest level, investment in research was the key to ensuring that Ireland would be in a technological leadership position in the world. At the other end of the scale, the quality of and access to basic education was the key to inclusion rather than exclusion, said the archbishop.
He pointed to the deplorable conditions of some schools. Investment in “fundamental infrastructure” did not just mean roads, and broadband, but more essentially, education and health care.
Quoting the ideas of Communion and Liberation founder, Luiggi Guissani, Dr Martin said education was about “the human soul, not in the technical sense, but in the sense of real young people aiming to be truly mature and rounded human persons.”
Education must lead young people to assume responsibility for shaping their own destiny in freedom and personal integrity, and this happened “through closeness and trust between the young person and the educator which us born from love.”
The verification of education, took place within a community, “where together with his or her peers he can encounter the experience of the values he aspires to. This is where the Catholic school belongs.”
He went on “This integration of faith, values and life is the characteristic contribution of the Catholic school, not just to its pupils but to society. This is the special contribution which a Catholic school places at the service of those parents who wish to transmit their values to the upcoming generation, not as some external or only partially relevant addition to education.”
In the past, said Dr Martin, Irish society, in some measure, provided this verification, but not so today in the same way and so young people needed Christian communities where they can experience the support of peers with similar interests and experiences. “Without such support the young person will be gobbled up in the centrifugal spin of a pluralism without an anchor.”
However the Catholic school could neither be an “illusory haven”, nor a ghetto. It had to maintain its own ethos and be open to people wishing to explore that ethos.
"But for that to work the ethos must be there and must be strong and part of the real world of the school community,” he added.
The heart of a Catholic school was an integrated vision of the meaning of life, based on belief in a God who is love, which the finds an echo in a community of believers who reflect that vision of life in their lives. Without that coherent commitment the originality of the Catholic school is lost, he said.
It would only be able to carry out its specific role if there were viable alternatives for parents who wished to send their children to schools inspired by other philosophies.
“The demand is there. The delay in provision of such alternative models has made true choice difficult for such parents and indeed for many teachers. It also makes it more difficult for Catholic schools to maintain their specific identity and bring their specific contribution to a pluralist society,” he said.
Among the other speakers at yesterday’s conference, were Education Minister Batt O’Keefe, and representatives of all the main school patronage bodies. The conference is looking at new models for the management of primary schools.
In the past year, two State-run primary schools have been established for the first time, under aegis of the Co Dublin Vocational Education Committee (VEC).
The Department of Education has agreed to religious education during school hours, but the Catholic Church and other religions are looking for guarantees that pupils will receive instruction from suitably qualified staff.
In his address Dr Martin reiterated that religious education was a positive contribution to the formation of young people to live in a truly pluralist world. “This is why I would hope that in any form of State primary school, as opposed to private patronage models, religious education according to the wishes of parents would find an appropriate place in the normal curriculum.”
Currently the Catholic Church has patronage over 3,000 of the 3,200 primary schools in the State.
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