Sir, – Gary Doyle’s invitation (Letters, June 6th) to visit an Educate Together school to see what a “multi-denominational co-educational child-centred alternative looks like” suggests that only Educate Together schools are co-educational and child centred. Most schools in Ireland are co-educational and all schools are required to deliver the State’s child-centred curriculum.
Mr Doyle’s “alternative” model is no different from any form of patronage. The real problem is the outmoded concept of school patronage, which is the continuing abrogation by the State of its responsibility under the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the O’Keefe case in 2014.
Replacing a dominant and failed form of school patronage with a plethora of diverse patrons – unelected, self-selected groups with different agendas – provides for the possibility in our schools for further segregation, whether based on class, religion, ethnicity, gender or other grounds.
In the spirit of the Stanley Letter of a more enlightened 19th century, let’s renationalise our schools. – Yours, etc,
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SEÁN Ó DÍOMASAIGH,
Dunsany,
Co Meath.
