Quinn criticised over patronage
January 22, 2013
A leading Catholic educationalist has accused Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn of exaggerating the level of parental demand for a wider diversity of school patrons.
Prof Eamonn Conway, head of the department of theology and religious studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, said the recent surveys in five pilot areas proved to be a “surprising endorsement of denominational education”.
He said: “If the pilot survey is indicative, then the demand is not as great as the Minister anticipated.’’ While the Government put a brave face on the survey results, the reality was that a large number of the parents who responded indicated they wished to have their children educated in Catholic schools.
“The actual number of parents who expressed an opinion in favour of change in each of the five areas polled in the pilot survey amounted to between 5 and 8 per cent, evidence of parental demand, certainly, but hardly of a “strong” or “clear” demand or “clear need” for greater choice, as the findings were reported in the press. “Moreover, a large majority of parents did not participate in the survey at all.”
The turnout ranged from 22 per cent to 44 per cent in the pilot survey in five areas last year. Parents in a further 38 areas are now being surveyed on their preferred choice of school patron. They have until February 8th to participate in the survey.
Prof Conway said t he church welcomed greater provision of alternative school patronage and “hopes that this will enable the schools that remain Catholic to get on with being so, without any expectation that their ethos will be diminished or diluted by the need to accommodate those of other faiths or none’’.
www.irishtimes.com
Church wants a state promise on ethos in schools
January 22, 2013
THE battle lines are being drawn between Catholic bishops and Education Minister Ruairi Quinn over the future of primary schools.
Moves to reduce the dominance of the Church in primary education will see the handover of some schools to other patron bodies. But the church is seeking guarantees about the protection of the ethos of schools that remain under Catholic control.
Last year the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism produced a blueprint on a process for divesting Catholic schools to other patrons, and on ways to ensure that denominational schools were more inclusive.
One strand involves the handover of Catholic schools to another patron body in areas where parents express a demand for greater choice. Following surveys late last year, the Catholic Church has been asked to divest a school in each of five towns and suburbs and the Department of Education is currently running similar surveys in a further 38 areas.
The other element of change is concerned with laying down new rules for the treatment of religion in all primary schools to ensure that they are inclusive. That is to be subject to a public consultation process that will get under way after the parental surveys are completed in February. That will mean an overlap between the two strands of the process and, while there is no formal link, a leading Catholic educationalist yesterday called for a trade-off.
Professor Eamonn Conway said that no Catholic primary schools should be handed over without firm guarantees that the ethos of the remaining schools would be respected. Prof Conway is head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, and a priest of the Tuam archdiocese. He said that under one proposal, Catholic schools would be forced to display all religious symbols along with their own and to vet hymns and prayers to ensure they were sufficiently ‘inclusive’.
He also challenged the proposal to delete Rule 68, which obliges national schools to ensure that a religious spirit underpins all their work. He challenged proposals to weaken Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, which protects the right of religious organisations, including schools, to employ only individuals who will respect the ethos of their employer.
Mandatory
Prof Conway also said a proposed new programme for primary schools, Education about Religion and Beliefs (ERB), should not be made mandatory because it “could teach pupils in a secularist view of religion”.
Catholic bishops also used the launch of Catholic Schools Week yesterday to insist that any change to the ethos must not undermine the faith of school-going children. Bishop Brendan Kelly of Achonry said it would be a “terrible travesty” for children “if a natural part of who they are is not acknowledged and nurtured in our schools”.
His concerns were echoed by Bishop Jones of Elphin who told the young congregation: “It is because of you that we are all concerned about Catholic education in our schools.”
www.independent.ie
Gaelscoil vying to secure playground equipment through a Facebook competition
January 18, 2013
A few months ago, Gaelscoil Dara, Renmore, entered a Facebook competition run by the English company Wicksteed Playscapes, to win playground equipment to the value of £25,000.
After diligent efforts were made by parents of the students to share the link and encourage their online friends to vote for Gaelscoil Dara, 1,737 votes were secured which allows the school to progress to the next stage of the contest for which 10 schools have been shortlisted.
A panel of adjudicators will visit the schools later in the month to determine which is the one most deserving of the prize. Parents, teachers, and the student body will team up to prove their determination to win. The children must exhibit their passion through artistic media, why they believe their school should be selected to win.
Out of the 120 schools which entered from Ireland and the UK, Gaelscoil Dara earned one of the highest numbers of votes. After a 27 year wait, Gaelscoil Dara received funding to build a permanent, new, premises, which can be seen from the Dublin Road, opposite GMIT, including a playground, but nfortunately the funds ran out before its completion. Instead, you have an empty, fenced off, spacious play area void of playing equipment and full of the school’s wheelie bins.
The children would love to see the building completed with the equipment in the empty playground as there is no other playground within walking distance in the community. It would be especially advantageous to the children with special needs attending the school and those who still visit from Rosedale School beside where Gaelscoil Dara once used to be.
Michelle Kirby, school secretary of Gaelscoil Dara, and instigator of the school’s application to the competition, thanks all the people of Galway and their Facebook friends, who took time to vote for the very deserving potential winner.
www.advertiser.ie/galway
Gaelscoil nua do Chill Dara
January 17, 2013
New children’s books to be won from Gaelport.com
January 15, 2013
This week one lucky subscriber will win a children’s book titled ‘Sicín’, which is distributed by Comharchumann Forbartha an Leith-Triúigh, located in Kerry.
The author of this beautiful book Máiréad Mag Uidhir was born and raised in Limerick. She has spent her working life teaching in her native city, teaching Children with Special Needs in St Joseph’s Primary School in Lisnagry at first and then for thirty years in Scoil Íde, Corbally.
‘Sicín’ is a lovely little book for children. It contains a wonderful story about nestlings who are about to leave the nest for the first time. There are three nestlings in all: Mattie, Jenny and Tiny. The events in the story happen on a Special Day, the day that the little birds are about to fly for the first time and leave the nest. Tiny is the hero of the story. Everybody thinks that he is not brave enough to fly by himself but he confounds the lot of them!
This is a lovely little herostory for children in the age group 4 – 8. It’s a simple, humorous, well-written story about overcoming all the odds and there is an important lesson contained therein: everyone can be a hero if he/she is brave enough.
The book is beautifully illustrated with some beautiful coloured illustrations by Mary and Emma Gilleece. This book would be very suitable in class for primary schoolchildren in the age group 4 – 8.
This week’s question:
Name the author of the book ‘Sicín’ ?
• Éilís Ni Dhuibhne
• Ríona Ní Congáil
• Máiréad Mag Uidhir
• Anna Heussaff
Please forward answers along with yours school’s name and contact details to the following email address: duais@comhdhail.ie and have the words “Comórtas Gaelport” as the subject of your mail.
The closing date for receipt of entries is 12 noon 24th January 2013.
We are grateful to Comharchumann Forbartha an Leith Triúigh Teoranta who kindly supplied the prize for this competition.
Congratulations to Padaí Ó Mianáin from Derry who won some wonderful CDs in our last edition.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
Comhrá Gaeilge do mhicléinn i gCeatharlach
January 15, 2013
Campaign for small schools to continue
January 15, 2013
Education campaigners in Donegal say department policies continue to threaten small schools, particularly minority faith and language schools, and said their protests will continue this year.
“There has been widespread debate about the consequences of last year’s budget with regard to small schools, and the result of the pupil-teacher ratio cuts in these schools,” said Father John Joe Duffy, Ballybofey curate and campaigner for small schools.
Father Duffy said the results of last year’s measures will be felt over the coming years, and fully realised in 2016-2017. He said the decision by Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn, TD, to reverse cuts last year to urban schools in the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (Deis) scheme but not to reverse the cuts for rural Deis schools, “clearly demonstrate a government who do not seem to understand that rural Ireland is suffering from social, educational and financial disadvantage, and the legacy of deprivation in rural towns and villages”.
Small Donegal schools have been particularly hard hit by government proposals to increase the number of pupils a national school must enrol to maintain staffing levels. The new staffing scheme takes effect over three years, with required enrolment increasing each year.
The past year has been “one of anxiety and worry and stress about the future of our schools,” schools campaigner and Church of Ireland Rev. John Deane said. “We’re worried about the pupil-teacher ratio being increased. We’re worried about the capitation moneys we get from the government that are being cut as well, and those two put together are very worrying for us.”
Church of Ireland schools are at the heart of local community and parish life, but the distances between them would make amalgamation impossible, Rev. Deane said. He used the Wood School in Ardara as an example, noting that the nearest minority-faith school to the north is in Dunfanaghy; the nearest to the south is in Dunkineely.
“It’s guaranteed in our constitution that minorities will be protected and looked after, but to me that is not happening at the moment,” Rev. Deane said. He said minority-faith schools have received significant capital investments but said there are a number of schools “coming very, very near the cut-off point” in terms of enrolment.
Rev. Deane added that minority-faith schools have also received great support from the Catholic community, and also credited the work of Father Duffy. “Don’t get me wrong,” Rev. Deane said. “We have the best of community relations here but we would like to be able to hold on to our own ethos and culture that we have in our small schools.”
Rev. Deane and Father Duffy were among Donegal’s most prominent campaigners for small schools last year, working together to highlight the impact of department decisions on small rural schools. “The most damning indictment of the government’s policy of severe cuts in pupil-teacher ratios was the severe consequence this had on Protestant and linguistic-minority schools,” Father Duffy said. He said the cuts will continue to have a much more severe effect “on the very future and survival of the schools”.
Though Father Duffy said he accepted Minister Quinn had not intended to disproportionately affect those schools, he said, “His actions, in many cases, will result in the closure of Protestant and minority linguistic schools”.
Father Duffy said Budget 2013 missed an opportunity “to show that we are a truly pluralistic society, that we are a truly inclusive country and that we are a democracy in which there is a place for minorities. “I believe now is the time for this government to show all the people on the island of Ireland, north and south, that we give equal rights and equal opportunities to all our children in our country, where class, creed and language ought to be treated equally,” he said.
Father Duffy and Rev. Deane addressed a protest against education cuts held in March of 2012 that drew up to 2,500 people to Letterkenny. They said the campaign will continue this year. “We’re looking to reinvigorate the protest we had,” Rev. Deane said. He said they have lobbied Donegal’s Oireachtas members, though results have been disappointing. “We’ve been promised nothing and we’ve certainly got nothing, to be honest with you,” he said.
Father Duffy said he had also been disappointed by the lack of political engagement and leadership on the issue in Donegal and nationally. “The issues are very much alive and require political leadership in order to solve them,” he said. “Therefore our campaign continues.”
www.donegaldemocrat.ie
Efforts to boost school patronage poll awareness
January 14, 2013
A wider information campaign is planned to promote a survey of parents on primary school choices after a mixed response to a trial survey before Christmas.
The Department of Education will send leaflets to every home in each of the 38 towns and suburbs where they want to find out how much demand there is for alternatives to the current provision of primary schools almost exclusively under religious patronage.
A more extensive campaign of radio and newspaper advertising is also planned after between 25% and 44% of eligible parents took part in the three-week exercise during November. It resulted in a recommendation that the Catholic bishops in all five areas make one of their local school buildings available for multi-denominational group Educate Together.
The body representing Catholic schools has said turnout was low and claims it means all those who did not take part are satisfied with current arrangements. A spokesperson for Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said participation was quite strong in the context of the low turnout in last year’s children’s referendum. However, the department has been asked to better promote awareness of the surveys by patrons who are interested in taking over Catholic schools, as they are restricted by a code of conduct around the survey to limited publicity spending.
The 38 areas where parents of all children up to the age of 12 are being asked for their views have 311 primary schools between them, or an average of around eight each. But the Department of Education says there are no primary schools in most of them besides those under the control of the local Catholic bishop or other religious patrons, and there is insufficient population growth for new schools to be built.
Kildare town has been removed from the list of areas being surveyed as an Educate Together school opened there in 2011 and a new gaelscoil is to be set up after evidence of demand put forward by all-Irish schools patron An Foras Pátrúnachta.
Both groups expressed interest in taking over any divested Catholic schools in most or all of the 38 remaining areas, with city or county vocational education committees interested in running primary schools in all of them.
Parents in three towns — Clonmel, Longford, and Monaghan — who would like more choice will also have the option of picking Rehab Group’s National Learning Network as an alternative patron. The Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Nigerian-founded church, is interested in running schools in Cobh, Dublin 6, Longford, and Shannon. The survey can be completed on the Department of Education website, or in a paper version on request, from today until Feb 8.
*The survey is online at www.education.ie and parents will need to give a PPS number for verification. A free helpline is also available 1800 303 621.
www.irishexaminer.com
More parents to vote on taking schools from Catholic control
January 14, 2013
PARENTS in 38 more towns and suburbs are being asked to decide whether they want to hand over a Catholic primary school to another patron.
It is part of the historic move to reduce the dominance of the church in primary education. It follows a similar exercise late last year, when parents in five areas voted in favour of greater choice.
As a result, the Catholic Church – which controls over 90pc of the country’s 3,000 primary schools – has been asked to hand over one in each of the five areas to the multi-denominational body, Educate Together, which had most support as an alternative patron.
Parents of all children up to 12 years in the 38 areas, which encompasses 311 schools, are being asked if they want change, and if so, who they would like to see operating their local primary schools.
The 38 towns and suburbs have stable populations and little prospect of any new school opening, so the only way to offer choice is to transfer the patronage of existing schools.
The bodies that have indicated a desire to take over a school in the areas are Vocational Education Committees (VECs), which have developed the Community National School model, the Irish language patron body, An Foras Patrunachta, Educate Together, and, in a small number of areas, the National Learning Network, which deals with pupils with special needs, and the Nigerian-based Redeemed Christian Church of God.
The surveys are going live today on www.education.ie, and will continue until February 8. Paper-based versions of the survey are also available on request. Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said it was “an historic opportunity” for parents to have a real say in the type of school their children attend.
Kildare town has been removed from the original list of areas to be surveyed because it already has an Educate Together school and An Foras Patrunachta will establish a Gaelscoil there next September. The Department of Education will run an information campaign on the issue.
www.independent.ie
School patron survey opens to parents
January 14, 2013
Voters in 38 areas given ‘historic opportunity’ to change patronage
Parents in 38 areas can vote from today for their preferred choice of primary school patron. The survey is designed to establish the level of demand from parents for diversity of school patronage in each of the towns and suburbs. At present, more than 90 per cent or 3,000 schools are under the remit of the Catholic Church. Parents of all children aged 12 and under can participate in the survey; this can be accessed online via education.ie until February 8th.
The survey initiative is in line with the recommendations of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary sector. Last year, there was controversy about the outcome of surveys in the five towns chosen for the initial stage of the process: Arklow, Castlebar, Tramore, Trim and Whitehall in Dublin.
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn claimed the results in the pilot areas showed a strong demand for change. However, Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic Schools Partnership said only a small percentage of parents in some areas favour changes to school patronage. He claimed that only 25 per cent of relevant parents surveyed responded.
Fr Drumm said he could not understand why the Department of Education cannot publish the exact statistic on the percentage of parents who participated. “I think people should look at the real figures. Take Arklow – those who want change are parents of 80 children in a school population of 1,965. That is only 4 per cent .”
If the latest survey backs change, the department will ask existing patrons to come up with a plan to transfer some schools to other patron bodies. The department hopes to begin the process of handing over Catholic-run schools to other patron bodies by September 2014. ‘ Real say’ Mr Quinn said the survey represents a “historic opportunity for parents to have a real say in the type of school they wish to send their children to, be it denominational, multi-denominational, all-Irish or other”.
There are 311 primary schools in the 38 areas which will be surveyed. The bodies which have indicated that they would like to become patrons of any divested schools in the identified areas are the VECs, An Foras Patrúnachta, Educate Together and, in a small number of areas, the National Learning Network and the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
A comprehensive information campaign by the department in each of the areas begins today. Helpline: 1800 303621
www.irishtimes.com
