Update - Redeployment Panels
- Published: 24 June 2011
Further information has been provided by the DES regarding redeployment panels and the filling of permanent and fixed term.
No school patronage turf war, says body [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 24 June 2011
THERE is no reason why school trusts cannot continue to transfer buildings to other school patrons, the head of the body overseeing Ireland’s multi-denominational schools has said.
Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together, which has almost 60 multi-denominational primary schools under its umbrella, was responding to questions from Professor John Coolahan, chairman of the advisory group to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector.
The chairman related the difficulties highlighted at the forum’s opening day by trustees and patrons of Catholic primary schools about trust law possibly preventing the hand-over, sale or lease of their properties to new patrons.
"Patron bodies indicated their hands are tied, even if they wish to divest or lease buildings, due to the legal context with charitable trusts and in one sense there [appears to be] a strait jacket and they can do very little."
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
'Common' schools best in transmitting civic values [IrishTimes]
- Published: 24 June 2011
OPINION: School patronage in a republic should hinge on turning out children who are good citizens
THE ESTABLISHMENT of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector by Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn has brought the question of religious denominational schooling into even sharper focus.
It is widely accepted that the current arrangement – where Catholic patrons run more than 90 per cent of primary schools – is inappropriate. Perhaps the most critical point to be considered by the forum is that it is inconceivable that the State could ever provide an array of denominational schools in every locality to cater for the particular religious or non-religious beliefs of every family in that area.
This belies the widely subscribed-to argument that the value of religious liberty requires the State to provide Catholic schools in every locality. Citizens of a republic enjoy religious liberty on an equal basis, and so, if the value requires the provision of Catholic schools in every locality, it similarly requires the provision of many different kinds of schools in every locality, simply by virtue of the fact that there is a diversity of religious and non-religious beliefs all across the State.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Schools have to include religion classes, forum told [IrishTimes]
- Published: 24 June 2011
IT IS not possible under current legislation for a school in the Republic to be religion-free, educationalists were told yesterday.
Speaking at a public hearing before the forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary sector at the Department of Education in Dublin yesterday, Prof John Coolahan said that “it would appear the State is prohibited” from allowing non-religious schools.
Prof Coolahan is chairman of the advisory group which this week has been questioning in open session stakeholders in the primary schools sector on submissions they have made on diversity of patronage.
He made the observation while questioning a delegation from the Irish National Teachers Organisation.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Primary teachers 'agnostic' on issue of school patronage [IrishTimes]
- Published: 24 June 2011
TEACHERS WERE “somewhat agnostic” when it came to the patronage of primary schools, Irish National Teachers Organisation general secretary Sheila Nunan told the advisory group on school patronage yesterday. They were more likely to be drawn in when it came to boards of management, she said.
Still, teachers attached “huge importance” to the patronage debate and were “glad it hasn’t descended into trench warfare as they have no vested interest in any patron body”, she said.
Sacramental preparation was “a very key feature of our denominational schools,” she said. Over recent years “teachers have been concerned that a responsibility has shifted to the school [for such preparation] which is not necessarily reflected in the faith community itself”, she said.
The issue of teachers who were not believers being involved with such preparation “arose from time to time”.
There had been no survey on the matter since 2002, which showed a majority of teachers were willingly involved in such preparation, with younger teachers less likely to be and rural teachers more willing, she said.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
