Divesting some schools could be liberating for the Catholic Church.SO, THE process of divesting some primary schools of Catholic patronage has finally begun.
It is an important moment, not just for parents and educators, but for the future of Irish society.
Irish society is no longer as homogenous as it once was, but that is no bad thing if we learn to deal with our differences in an atmosphere of respect.
If handled well, this dialogue could provide a model for helping us to face other challenges.
It is an opportunity for a real debate about the values, virtues and attitudes we want for our young people and for education.
It is important to remember that we are not talking about dismantling a failed system. By many criteria, including structure, management and maintenance of discipline, Irish primary schools are judged internationally to function exceptionally well, particularly in spite of decades of under-funding.
In fact, much of the pressure came from the Roman Catholic Church itself, as it recognised that there were a significant minority of parents who, if given a choice between schools of equal excellence, would not choose a Catholic school.
A Catholic school is a faith community, and it is in no one’s interests, least of all the church, to see parents forced to choose a model with which they are uncomfortable.
Divesting some schools is also an opportunity for Catholic schools to reflect at a deep level about the future of Catholic education, and what distinguishes it from other educational models.
Far from damaging the Catholic Church, it could be liberating, and enable Catholic schools to forge even stronger bonds with the parents who choose to belong to and support this faith community.
Ironically, we only have enough schools to potentially provide a choice because we have an unusually high number of schools by international standards.
There are some 3,300 primary schools, which would never have been economically sustainable if so many of them had not been supported financially and otherwise for so long by the extensive social network of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has 20,000 volunteers working on boards of management and elsewhere, without any recompense or expense claims whatsoever. Certain senators and county councillors, please take note.
Recognising a need is not as easy as fulfilling that need in the best possible fashion. Parental choice is not just a mantra. In order for choice to be meaningful, it has to be made with full information about the consequences and outcomes.
The Department of Education report concentrated on demographics. That is only the first, and simplest step. Precision in defining the alternatives on offer will be important here.
We need a real process of consultation and research, and absolute clarity about what each model of school patronage represents. We need to conduct research with parents, teachers, principals, pupils, and other stakeholders such as past pupils.
There is nothing wrong with opinion polls that suggest X amount of people would choose a particular model of school patronage.
However, far more profound factors influence people when it is not just a matter of ticking a box in a survey, but of choosing something as vital as the school where your child will spend so many years of her or his life.
There has been a simplistic analysis of secular education as automatically more plural, diverse and egalitarian, with denominational education automatically assumed therefore to be the opposite.
However, people familiar with Irish primary education know that on all sorts of criteria, from integration of minorities from abroad to catering for very disadvantaged groups like Travellers, denominational education scores very highly on inclusivity.
As The Irish Times Religious Affairs Correspondent, Patsy McGarry, put it on Wednesday, Catholic education is not sectarian, and it would be a shame if increased diversity of school patronage led to more social stratification, not less.
One of the most important issues needing clarification is what exactly is meant by denominational, inter-denominational, multi-denominational and non-denominational education.
From the department’s report, it appears that they recognise three basic categories. There are denominational schools, run by one particular faith community.
There are inter-denominational schools, run by two or more faith communities, generally two or more Christian churches. So far, so good.
But they then appear to think that all the rest are multi-denominational.
However, internationally, multi-denominational is generally taken to mean that denominations are respected to the extent that religious education is provided for each of the major faith communities (within reason) within the school day.
So in Ireland, at primary level, the two new VEC primary schools are multi- denominational. (Of course, constitutionally, non-believing parents may remove their children from any faith instruction.)
There is an obvious demand for Educate Together schools, and they provide a valuable service.
However, Educate Together also refers to itself as multi-denominational, but do something quite different to the VEC schools.
Educate Together provide education about religion, as a cultural phenomenon deserving of respect, but all education aimed at belief must happen outside of school.
Choosing alternative schools is not just a matter of each patron body setting out its stall, but of gathering a representative sample of parents, who would be willing to volunteer for sophisticated focus group research, and also to be informed about the implications of each educational model.
It may be that parents come up with something different to any of the existing models. There has to be a genuine openness to all possibilities.
SIC: IT