Sir, - With reference to ASTI president Catherine Fitzpatrick's letter (October 10th), no member of NCSPA executive has made "somewhat intemperate statements" concerning the Exploring Masculinities affair. Our comments and analysis have been made in the clear critical terms merited by the deficiencies as we see them. Could it be that the ASTI executive is somewhat taken aback to discover that parents with prior educational rights, have points of view and are well capable of expressing these when so required?
Perhaps ASTI needs to come into the 21st century and realise that effective parental representation and insistence on education rights are here to stay. The days of parents being timid, silent, unequal partners in education are gone forever.
As the longest established parental representative group, the National Congress of Catholic Secondary Schools Parents' Associations will continue to articulate the views and express the rights and values which underpin the ethos of our denominational schools.
If commonsense and a genuine wish for equitable treatment prevailed in ASTI, it would also be pursuing the best interests of the Catholic secondary sector considering that most of their members work there. If Exploring Masculinities represents the best of ASTI efforts on behalf of our schools, then the values of its representatives involved in this experiment are far removed from our ethos, which they should also be promoting.
We are well aware of the aims and content of that programme as well as the Education Act provisions and other matters. It would, we suggest, be productive for Ms Fitzpatrick and her officers to familiarise themselves with parents' prior rights in education generally and matters of moral instruction in particular before they involve themselves in any further programme of this kind and present it as suitable for Catholic schools.
If some members of the ASTI executive or anyone else think that Catholic parents will happily tolerate having politically correct secular ideologies incorporated into Catholic secondary school programmes or manuals they are mistaken. No parent group had any national consultative input into Exploring Masculinities so the "tribute" Ms Fitzpatrick expresses to parents involved is to be taken with a grain of salt. At National Parents Council level, all we got were a few A4 sheets with the usual reassuring waffle and vague general phrases when the material had already been delivered in many voluntary Catholic schools.
Emotional development and self esteem will certainly be enhanced by educational accomplishment, leading to better job prospects, rather than transition year and senior cycle pupils being induced to reveal personal and family matters concerning what goes on at home and other objectionable and time wasting activities. - Yours etc.
David Hegarty, NCSPA, Tralee, Co Kerry.