This week The Irish Times published an interactive database drawn from a Department of Education survey of attitudes among households with primary school-aged children towards school patronage. The database allows readers to search for results from schools in their own area.
The results show a clear desire for change among a substantial cohort. About 40 per cent of parents whose children attend religious-run schools would prefer a multi-denominational ethos. Figures vary across the country, with stronger demand in eastern, southern and more urban areas. But whatever the regional variations, current provision plainly does not meet demand.
That much has been known for some time. What had not been available was the granular detail of where demand was greatest, and in which schools it amounted to a majority. At least 101 religious-patronage schools recorded response rates above 50 per cent where most parents backed a change of patron. The very high appetite for change in Church of Ireland schools has caused some surprise and merits further investigation. Even so, the number of schools where parents want change is significant.
This is hardly unexpected. For more than 30 years successive governments have attempted, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to reconcile a primary system that is overwhelmingly denominational with a population that is increasingly secular and multi-faith. Inertia and suspicion of change have been blamed for the painfully slow transfer of schools from one patronage model to another.
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But the data also shows that a great many households, a majority nationally, remain content with denominational patronage. That must be respected. But it does not answer the structural question of how to identify the schools where transition would be appropriate.
The Department has asked schools to notify it by the end of October if they wish to join a first, supported phase of change. The Catholic Education Partnership has said the results show little national pressure for change while accepting some local cases merit consideration.
Figures released this week by the conservative think tank the Iona Institute show a steep fall in Catholic baptisms over the past 10 years, due in part to a decline in religious affiliation but also to a falling birth rate. Against that backdrop, it simply makes no sense to build a new generation of multi-denominational schools when enrolments are falling elsewhere. The solution must lie in transferring patronage of existing schools. That will not be simple. But a national realignment of education provision is already overdue. A system funded almost entirely by the State must reflect the needs of those it is supposed to serve.
