Church told to hand over control of 23 more primary schools

krudler · 02-04-2013 09:18AM #1

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/quinn-will-announce-church-to-lose-school-control-29167728.html

THE Catholic Church is being told to hand over another 23 primary schools in an historic shake-up of the eduction system designed to offer parents more choice.
Department of Education surveys in 43 towns and suburbs over the past six months found that two-thirds of parents wanted a more diverse range of schools -- meaning a reduction of the church's overwhelming dominance of school patronage.

The results of the consultation with 10,000 parents on future control of local schools can be revealed today, with Education Minister Ruairi Quinn pointing out that a majority of areas surveyed had shown sufficient parental demand for wider choice of schools.

He insisted: "We cannot ignore this call for change."

Good stuff, parents wanting changing and choice in their children's educations, long may it continue.

smokingman · 02-04-2013 09:33AM

Only 23?!

Zillah · 02-04-2013 09:35AM

smokingman wrote: »

Only 23?!

Baby steps.

Tabnabs · 02-04-2013 09:35AM

It's excellent, we're looking forward to sending our children to a multi-denominational school. A huge step forward.

robindch · 02-04-2013 09:40AM

smokingman wrote: »

Only 23?!

That's 23 schools out of 38 voted to abandon church control -- just over 60%. Not perfect, but better than it could have been, given the dozy manner in which the polls were carried out.

I'm expecting there to me much more activity from the Tooters and others when the next round of patronage elections comes up.

expectationlost · 02-04-2013 09:47AM

http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/PR-%202013-%2004-%2002.html

so what was the formula they use to decide who met the threshold of demand

A2LUE42 · 02-04-2013 09:52AM

I really hope we don`t end up like the UK and this is the point where a lot of schools went downhill so badly that people end up joining the church to get their children into a decent school.

recedite · 02-04-2013 11:04AM

Fair play to Ruairi Quinn and his department for sticking with this issue and not letting it drag on forever in an endless "consultative process".

A2LUE42 wrote: »

I really hope we don`t end up like the UK and this is the point where a lot of schools went downhill so badly that people end up joining the church to get their children into a decent school.

A lot of that is due to religious schools being allowed to cherry-pick their applicants, which allows them to exclude people from certain ethnic or socio-economic backgrounds, on the spurious grounds of "religion". Don't fool yourself into thinking its not already happening here.
The cure for this is very simple; withdraw public funding from any institution that restricts public access.

Zamboni · 02-04-2013 11:16AM

Congratulations to the Independent for their melodramatic headline.
The church played a part in the process. They are not being told to do anything.

Congratulations to ET for providing people an alternative for parents and children of other and no faiths.

But mostly, congratulations to Ruari Quinn.
Regardless of your politics, that man has single-handedly made history in the educational choice in this country.
He will be gone come the next general election and some christian FF/FGer will be Minister for Education, but it will be gone too far to row back these changes.
People of our persuasion should applaud Quinn.

Penn · 02-04-2013 11:43AM

Zamboni wrote: »

Congratulations to the Independent for their melodramatic headline.
The church played a part in the process. They are not being told to do anything.

Congratulations to ET for providing people an alternative for parents and children of other and no faiths.

But mostly, congratulations to Ruari Quinn.
Regardless of your politics, that man has single-handedly made history in the educational choice in this country.
He will be gone come the next general election and some christian FF/FGer will be Minister for Education, but it will be gone too far to row back these changes.
People of our persuasion should applaud Quinn.

Agreed. It's a shame Labour seem destined to be destroyed in the next Election, because with stuff like this they have made real, important progress.

Skrynesaver · 02-04-2013 01:01PM

Penn wrote: »

Agreed. It's a shame Labour seem destined to be destroyed in the next Election, because with stuff like this they have made real, important progress.

The social policy agenda was always going to be the only place they could make headway when FG had so many seats and the troika were in town...

expectationlost · 02-04-2013 01:48PM

Penn wrote: »

Agreed. It's a shame Labour seem destined to be destroyed in the next Election, because with stuff like this they have made real, important progress.

23 schools

VinLieger · 02-04-2013 02:27PM

expectationlost wrote: »

23 schools

For now, did you want all the schools turned over tomorrow? Be realistic

Peregrinus · 02-04-2013 02:27PM

robindch wrote: »

That's 23 schools out of 38 voted to abandon church control -- just over 60%. Not perfect, but better than it could have been, given the dozy manner in which the polls were carried out.

No, no. Your methodology is all wrong. It’s 38 districts, not 38 schools. There are many more than 38 schools in the districts concerned (but we don’t know how many more).

In 23 out of 38 districts where the consultation was held, there was sufficient support for a non-denominational school to lead the Department to conclude that one school in the district should be transferred from church patronage to non-denominational patronage.

“Sufficient support” means that the parents of (at least) 80 to 100 pupils indicated a preference for a non-denominational school. Since some parents have more than one child, that could be less than 80 to 100 parents.

We can’t express this as a percentage of the parents voting, since (a) we don’t know how many parents voted for non-denominational patronage; we only know that in 23 out of 38 districts it was at least the parents of 80 children. But even if we knew exactly how many parents voted that way, we still couldn’t express it as a percentage, since (b) we don’t know the total number of parents or pupils in each of the 23 districts.

What we do know is that, in the 38 districts, 10,700 parents voted, and this was reportedly less than a quarter of the parents who could have voted. It’s not difficult to calculate that you could have the parents of 80-100 children in 23 of the districts voting for a non-denominational school, and the total vote for non-denominational schools could be substantially less than 60% of the parents voting, never mind of the parents who could vote. If we assume that 60 parents could represent 80 children, then in theory the vote for non-denominational schools could have been as low as

(60 x 23)/10,700

which is not quite 13% of those who voted, or a little over 4% of those who were entitled to vote.

That’s the lowest it could have been. In fact I’m sure the vote for non-denominational patronage was much higher than that – in those 23 districts at least 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, but the figure could have been much higher than that, plus of course in the other 15 districts something less than 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, and they have to be counted as well. But there’s no basis for your figure of 60%.

Pherekydes · 02-04-2013 02:44PM

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, no. Your methodology is all wrong. It’s 38 districts, not 38 schools. There are many more than 38 schools in the districts concerned (but we don’t know how many more).

In 23 out of 38 districts where the consultation was held, there was sufficient support for a non-denominational school to lead the Department to conclude that one school in the district should be transferred from church patronage to non-denominational patronage.

“Sufficient support” means that the parents of (at least) 80 to 100 pupils indicated a preference for a non-denominational school. Since some parents have more than one child, that could be less than 80 to 100 parents.

We can’t express this as a percentage of the parents voting, since (a) we don’t know how many parents voted for non-denominational patronage; we only know that in 23 out of 38 districts it was at least the parents of 80 children. But even if we knew exactly how many parents voted that way, we still couldn’t express it as a percentage, since (b) we don’t know the total number of parents or pupils in each of the 23 districts.

What we do know is that, in the 38 districts, 10,700 parents voted, and this was reportedly less than a quarter of the parents who could have voted. It’s not difficult to calculate that you could have the parents of 80-100 children in 23 of the districts voting for a non-denominational school, and the total vote for non-denominational schools could be substantially less than 60% of the parents voting, never mind of the parents who could vote. If we assume that 60 parents could represent 80 children, then in theory the vote for non-denominational schools could have been as low as

(60 x 23)/10,700

which is not quite 13% of those who voted, or a little over 4% of those who were entitled to vote.

That’s the lowest it could have been. In fact I’m sure the vote for non-denominational patronage was much higher than that – in those 23 districts at least 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, but the figure could have been much higher than that, plus of course in the other 15 districts something less than 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, and they have to be counted as well. But there’s no basis for your figure of 60%.

Surely you're not suggesting only one parent per child has a vote?

Peregrinus · 02-04-2013 02:58PM

Pherekydes wrote: »

Surely you're not suggesting only one parent per child has a vote?

Good point. I don't know the methodology adopted there - was it one vote per parent, or one vote per pupil? If the consultation is attempting to measure the demand for a non-denominational school, then what you want to know is, how many children would be enrolled in a non-denominational school, if one were provided? And if two parents vote in respect of a particular pupil, and they vote different ways, do you count that as a pupil who would be enrolled in the non-denominational school, or not? Which is why I'm kind of assuming that it's one vote per pupil.

But you're quite right; it's an assumption on my part, and it could be wrong.

But if it's one vote per parent, and if either or both parents voting for the non-dom school is treated as demand for the non-dom school, it could be awkward. Forseeably, when the school was established the number of pupils who would actually transfer in that situation would be less than the consultation is showing, since in at least a proportion of the cases the parent who prefers denominational patronage would win out.

And that would be very embarrassing. The threshold set for recommending the transfer of a school to non-denominational patronage was the parents of 80 to 100 pupils, that being the smallest number of pupils considered necessary for a viable school. For that reason the methodology for estimating demand needs to be robust; if demand is overestimated and the non-denominational school, when established, attracts fewer pupils than required for viability, it will be red faces all round and a significant setback for those who argue that we need more non-denominational schools. Which presumably is an outcome the Department is keen to avoid. So I guess they don't just look at the number of parents voting for a non-denominational school, and assume that the children of all those parents would transfer regardless of whether the other parent agrees, and count them towards the 80-100 threshhold.

Or, if that's what they have done, then I forecast tears before bedtime!

On edit: Koth has obligingly provided a link to the survey report below. It's clear that survey responses were sought on a per-family basis, not a per-parent basis. If two reponses were received in respect of the same pupils, they were discarded.

Phoebas · 02-04-2013 03:01PM

Are the names or locations of these schools known?

Delirium · 02-04-2013 03:03PM

For anyone who is interested, link to the PDF of the report (all 203 pages of it).

Peregrinus · 02-04-2013 03:06PM

Phoebas wrote: »

Are the names or locations of these schools known?

The names of the 23 districts in which a transfer has been recommendedf are known, and they are listed in the Irish Times report about this. The particular schools to be transferred have not been identified yet (as in, not only have they not yet been named in the papers, but nobody has actually chosen which schools are to transfer).

Of the 23 districts where a transfer has been recommended, in one case the transfer is to be to An Foras Patrunachta, and in (I think) two cases to the VEC. In the other cases a transfer to Educate Together is recommended.

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 03:08PM

No change in our area. Have just phoned the Irish Human Rights Commision and on their advice am writing a formal complaint to them. I am no lawyer but from what I understand the Irish government are breaching Articles 18 and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We live rurally outside a town that has a population of 10000. How can it be acceptable to only have schools that are run by religious institutions?

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 03:14PM

I'm sorry if I am ranting but am really angry today! How can children's education be run by establishments that base their values on fairytales believed by adults that are no different from psychotic delusion? Would everyone be happy if 90% of Irish schools were run according to the teachings and principles of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter books? To be honest I think I'd prefer it to the current ridiculous state of affairs.

iPearly · 02-04-2013 03:15PM

Nothing in Louth. Shame

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 03:23PM

Nothing is acceptable, good enough, or worth celebrating until the vast majority of schools in this country are run by the Department of Education and suitable for EVERY child, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Athiest, Muslim, Scientology or whatever else!

On saying that I do admire Rauri Quinn for his efforts and will always be a Labour voter as long as I live here, even if only for their stance on education and abortion. I don't see any issue facing this country, despite the economy, as more important than removing the influence of the Catholic Church from publicly funded institutions and services.

Peregrinus · 02-04-2013 03:24PM

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

No change in our area.

Is that because your area wasn't surveyed, or because it was surveyed but judged to have insufficient demand?

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 03:45PM

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is that because your area wasn't surveyed, or because it was surveyed but judged to have insufficient demand?

We were surveyed. Insufficient demand.

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 03:48PM

It seems we are living in a brain dead part of the Country.

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 03:57PM

It should not matter whether Catholic people resist or not. All schools should be secular, suitable for any religion or none, and run by the Departmemt of Education. Catholics have no reason to oppose this, all schools will remain suitable for their children, as opposed to the current arrangement where nearly all schools are ONLY suitable for their children. Can they not brainwash their kids on their own time? Why should the non Catholic tax payer pick up the tab for universal indoctrination of Catholicism, including of their own children which is contrary to their beliefs?

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 03:58PM

Religion is a state of delusion!

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 04:05PM

Truthfully educating and the teaching of religion as fact are two mutually exclusive concepts!

Zamboni · 02-04-2013 04:50PM

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

It seems we are living in a brain dead part of the Country.

I feel for you. Genuinely.
Is moving even a remote possibility for you?

Kiwi in IE · 02-04-2013 05:03PM

Zamboni wrote: »

I feel for you. Genuinely.
Is moving even a remote possibility for you?

No we brought a house here and my partner's parents and siblings all live in the area.

I found that one of the questions in the survey was slightly misleading actually. After asking what type of school patronage you would prefer, the next question was "Will you use this school?". I answered yes for the sake of the greater good and any future children we may have, but in reality the answer is no, as Little Kiwi starts junior infants in September. If they were to sort out an ET by September then yes, we would use it. However if he had been in the COI school for 2 years when one opened, and was happy there, I would not move him. Many other parents likely feel the same and would have used an ET had there been one, but are not going to move their 8 year old out of their current school if one opens.

The survey is therefore really only relevant to parents of preschool children. What of those who will become parents for the first time in the coming years. It should have been open to everyone of voting age!

Church told to hand over control of 23 more primary schools

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