IPPN

Published: 22 June 2011

FAIR treatment by schools of all children, regardless of their beliefs, is more important to parents than who is patron, a forum on pluralism in education will hear this morning.

The National Parents Council-Primary (NPC-P) says transferring the patronage of the only school in a rural area from the Catholic bishop would not increase choice because there would still only be one local school, albeit with a different patron.

The advisory group of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector today begins three days of hearings with groups representing primary patrons, managers, principals, teachers and patrons.

The forum was set up by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn with a central aim being to increase the choice of school types for parents, particularly in urban areas where there may be scope for one or more schools under Catholic patronage to be divested to another patron. He has suggested up to half the country’s 3,300 Catholic primary schools could transfer but groups representing Catholic schools and their bishops consider such a target unrealistic.