A chara, – Further to Paul Rowe's "Minister should accelerate school divestment programme" (Opinion & Analysis, July 15th), I note with interest his statement "a parent-led campaign for an Educate Together school in Dublin 6 has garnered almost 500 expressions of interest in the two months it is running". An impressive result. The question is, do these parents truly want to send their children to an Educate Together school or are they just desperate for more school places in their area?
My own experience of living in that part of Dublin is that parents will put their children’s names down for every school within a reasonable range – and often enough unreasonable ranges too – driven by the fear that, due to the shortage of places, they’ll be left without one. If that still holds true, it wouldn’t be surprising if people expressed an interest in a new Educate Together establishment. A new school means more places in the area, after all; and more places means that their child has a better chance of getting into their school of choice.
But this isn’t what Mr Rowe is proposing in the article. He’s looking for existing schools to be placed under his organisation’s patronage. This would be robbing Peter to pay Paul and would do nothing to ameliorate the difficulties parents face in securing a place for their children. The only thing that will do that is more schools; and if he truly has the support he believes he has this, I suggest, is what he should be working on to meet the needs of those who agree with his particular educational philosophy, rather than attempting to take from parents who think otherwise the schools they have worked so long and hard to establish and maintain. – Is mise,
Rev PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer,
Co Kilkenny.
Sir, – Paul Rowe of Educate Together notes that schools categorise families “as somehow less entitled to an education within their community on the basis of their privately held religious beliefs”.
I do not mean to unfairly single out Catholic schools but, given that over 90 per cent of primary schools in Ireland are owned and controlled by the Catholic Church, although funded by the State, it is fair to say that this applies predominantly to such schools.
Mr Rowe may well be correct to place the onus in this regard on schools rather than the Government. Disgraceful though the legislation is, section 7(3)(c) of the Equal Status Act 2000 does not impose an obligation on schools to draft and apply discriminatory enrolment policies – it merely allows them to do so.
For example, every Catholic primary school in the country is free to have an open, first-come first-served enrolment policy; although out of almost 3,000 such schools, I am not aware of a single one that does. Instead they rely on section 7(3)(c) to apply a uniformly “Catholics first” enrolment policy. It would appear that if change is to come in this area it will only be via the repeal of section 7(3)(c).
Educate Together is a great organisation. Like Mr Rowe, I believe all families should have the opportunity to avail of a local Educate Together school, should they so wish. However, allowing for economic realities and the resolute non-divestment of schools, it does not seem that this will happen any time soon.
Do we really want the Irish education system to continue further on the ludicrous path of segregating five-year-olds on the basis of their parents’ religious choices? By all means build more Educate Together schools but if real change is to come it will only start with the repeal of section 7(3)(c). – Yours, etc,
PADDY MONAHAN.
Raheny, Dublin 5.
Sir, – Parents, though liberal in many other respects, are likely to strongly resist any change to the ethos of their school. Off the record, many bishops (school patrons) and particularly curates would, actually, welcome the divesting of the schools within their remit. Relief from the onerous and often thankless job of school manager would be a welcome benefit.
In this and other matters parents have votes and isn’t it votes that elect politicians? It’s called democracy. The solution, however, is to build more schools to solve the obvious problem of a shortage of school places. – Yours, etc,
MICK O’BRIEN,
Springmount,
Kilkenny .