School patronage

THE DECISION by Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn to establish a Forum on Patronage and Pluralism is welcome. 

The need for some kind of forum to tease out these issues has been a long standing demand of the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) but former education ministers, Batt O’Keeffe and Mary Coughlan, appeared reluctant to establish it. Mr Quinn maintains it will not be a talking shop. 

Its task, he says, will be to work out the practicalities of how transfer/divesting can be advanced to ensure that demands for diversity of patronage can be identified and met.

The debate on patronage was triggered three years ago when the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin acknowledged the church was over-represented in Irish education. 

At the time, Dr Martin suggested that perhaps one in four Catholic schools could be divested. 

But he has not been prescriptive about the degree of control the church should retain or divest in Irish education.

It is by no means certain if his open-minded approach is shared by other members of the hierarchy. 

Catholic Church leaders are reported as being “shocked’’ by suggestions from Mr Quinn that some 50 per cent of 3,000 primary schools under the church’s control could be divested. 

There are indications that a forthcoming position paper from the Catholic Schools Partnership – established by the Episcopal Conference and the Conference of Religious in Ireland – may adopt a less accommodating stance than that signalled by Dr Martin.

It is to be hoped that the church will not retreat to the trenches. 

The facts are as outlined by Mr Quinn in an interview on Today FM yesterday. 

A situation where the church controls almost 90 per cent of primary schools does not reflect the “contours of modern Ireland’’. 

In today’s schools, the church cannot even be certain that the teacher charged with preparing his pupils for the sacraments shares the Catholic faith.

In the debate to come, the views of parents must take centre stage. An Irish Times poll last year found that 61 per cent of people favour transferring control of primary schools from the Catholic Church to the State. 

It may be that other surveys and plebiscites are required among local communities to assess fully local preferences. 

What is clear is that the existing system of patronage is outmoded and requires change. 

As the INTO has noted, the forum should help to shape a new future for primary education in Ireland. 

The Catholic Church must be a willing partner in this process.

 

Source