A painfully worked out agreement on the governance and ethos of primary schools has been announced after nearly three years of negotiations. The agreement will allow for the setting up of new, more democratic, boards of management in primary schools after elections in December. It has been signed by the Irish National Teachers Organisation, the National Parents Council (Primary), the Catholic Primary School Managers Association, the Church of Ireland Board of Education, Educate Together and the Gaelscoileanna.
The Minister for Education, Mr Martin, said yesterday that the new board of management model "provides for equality of representation of school interests, through two elected parents, two teachers (principal and elected teacher) and two owner representatives. These six will agree unanimously a further two representatives from the wider community." He paid tribute to the work of the agreement's facilitator, Dr Tom McCarthy, in bringing it about.
Mr Martin admitted that even after the constitutionality of the school deeds of trust laid down by the agreement had been passed by the Attorney General, difficulties had arisen which have been resolved only within the past two months.
One of the principal problems was the insistence of the Church of Ireland that its schools should have "absolute discretion" as to which pupils they allowed in. The INTO insisted equally strongly that it was "unable to support any wording which allowed schools to exclude children solely on the grounds of religious belief".
This was resolved by this compromise wording, suggested last month by the Church of Ireland Board of Education: "Nothing in this deed shall oblige the school to accept any particular child as a pupil, and, subject to the constitutional rights of all persons concerned being respected, acceptance of children as pupils in the school shall at all times be in the discretion of the board of management, having regard to the denominational character of the school; and, further, acceptance of a child who is not a member of the Church of Ireland as a pupil shall be on the basis that his or her parents accept that the ethos in the school is and will be as described herein provided always that no attempt shall be made to interfere directly with the particular beliefs of such pupil."
The National Parents Council welcomed the agreement as "a worthwhile step towards full participation of parents as equal partners in school management". The NPC national co-ordinator, Ms Fionnuala Kilfeather, said the next step was "to ensure a full choice of school types for parents. Non-denominational and multi-denominational choices are still extremely limited."
The Catholic Hierarchy welcomed the agreement as "a historic development in ensuring the continuation of the ethos of schools of different religious denominations".
INTO has reluctantly accepted this wording, while "reminding the education partners of the need to make non-denominational education available as a choice for parents".