The three-day forum on school patronage at the Department of Education entered its final day Friday.
Educationalists
were told Thursday it is not possible under current legislation for a
school in the Republic to be religion-free.
Speaking at a public
hearing before the forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary
sector in Dublin, Prof John Coolahan said that “it would
appear the State is prohibited” from allowing non-religious schools.
Prof
Coolahan is chairman of the advisory group which this week has been
questioning in open session stakeholders in the primary schools sector
on submissions they have made on diversity of patronage.
He made the observation while questioning a delegation from the Irish National Teachers Organisation.
Speaking
to the media later he said since 1926 the rule in this State was that
religious instruction had been “asserted as part of the school day”.
It
was stipulated that religion and the spiritual “should inform and vivify
the whole world of the school”.
Áine Hyland, who had been
involved with the Dalkey School project in the 1970s, explained to
reporters present the reason why that school was described as
“multi-denominational” as opposed to “non-denominational” was because of
Department of Education insistence that it comply with this rule.
Yesterday,
the second day of the hearings which began on Wednesday, six further
groups appeared before the advisory group of Prof Coolahan, Dr Caroline
Hussey and Fionnuala Kilfeather.
The groups were Educate Together, an
Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna Lán-Ghaelige, Gaelscoileanna Teoranta,
the INTO, the Islamic Foundation of Ireland and the Irish Vocational
Education Association.
Opening proceedings Prof Coolahan said when
it came to a plurality of patrons in the primary sector, there was
“general recognition we have a problem . . . which is not unanswerable”.
It was something “we do not want to leave unattended as it could lead
to conflict and damage in local communities. It’s not what Ireland needs
now.”
In his responses to questions from the advisory group Paul
Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together, said that “in our experience
very, very few people in Ireland want their children educated in an
environment without a belief system.
“Our experience is that it is an absolutely minimal demand in the Irish context.”
However
what parents wanted for their children “had to be heard”, he suggested,
adding that such preference “has never been measured properly in the
Irish context”.
Such a survey of pre-school children would allow the
State plan accordingly.
Where Educate Together was concerned, he
said, parental demand was such that, as an example, in the Portobello
area of Dublin 300 children were now seeking places where only 60 were
available in their schools.
He agreed with Dr Hussey that an independent preference body, with a CAO-type role, “could address the question of enrolment”.
It could operate under a local authority but would have to be independent of any patron of a school, he said.
“All
parents in receipt of child benefit could receive a second form for
children under three years” on which they “could mark their preference
1,2,3...”
The key dynamic in the sector was “parental choice”, he
said. He also believed that “as a policy the State should own the
schools and allocate leasing arrangements according to demand”.
Educate
Together had “no interest in acquiring sites or buildings” and had
found “other patron bodies extremely accommodating” when it came to
sharing properties.
“The media perception of turf wars (between patrons) is a mistaken one, in my view,” he said.