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Child Item

School patronage

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From today's indo

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/parents-get-vote-to-take-schools-out-of-control-of-the-church-3233287.html

This is interesting. It is hard to assess this initiative based on the information in that article. Of course, personally I would prefer a complete removal of religious influence from state funded schools. However I am not sure that I am happy about this proposed survey. I can see many parents voting not to change purely based on "the devil you know" attitude. I wonder also is potentially divisive to make communities nail their colours to the mast publicly? I suppose it will depend on the detail of the survey.

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Zamboni

recedite wrote: »

Due to public demand and people voting for them, either with their feet or in polls when new schools were coming on stream. I don't think Quinn is claiming the credit for the spread of ET schools?

And who gave them the vote? Quinn has been pushing for parental choice from the day he got into office.

expectationlost

Zamboni wrote: »

And who gave them the vote? Quinn has been pushing for parental choice from the day he got into office.

"parental choice" is bull****, there is no choice.

recedite

Zamboni wrote: »

Quinn has been pushing for parental choice from the day he got into office.

Pushing with his little finger. Where people voted for a change of patronage, no change has occurred.

Banbh

"Quinn has been pushing..." Pushing who? He's the Minister for Education and during his period in office not a single school has been divested from the patronage of the Catholic Church. Also, the Catholic Church has stuck two fingers up at him in the matter of paying anything for their crimes against children.
I'm not "whinging", I'm shouting and I'm angry. There is something worse than the usual subservient ring-kissing Ministers we have been used to and that's the one who pretends to be in favour of democratising the schools and then does NOTHING. The sooner he's gone the better.

Hotblack Desiato

Zamboni wrote: »

And who gave them the vote? Quinn has been pushing for parental choice from the day he got into office.

I live in a large area (7 primary schools) wth no English-speaking non-religious option at all. And this is not an area which has been included in the 'vote'.

At secondary level there is one gaelscoil and two large single-sex RC schools. Even less choice than at primary.

Zamboni

I am interested to see what people here believe could have been achieved by a minister in a junior party in a coalition with a centre right Christian party as the lead.
What could have been done to force the religious congregations to hand over school properties they have hidden behind a complex trust?
What uproar would there have been by parents if patronage was forced out of catholic patrons. The surveys showed a lot of parents were quite happy with the status quo.
There is no way Educate Together would have attained second level patronage in 2013 if a FG or FF minister was in the DoE.
I know you're all angry, so am I.
And I'd say Quinn is raging too that he has his hands tied so much.

Banbh

It is hard to accept the notion that the Minister for Education is powerless to influence the control of schools, even though he writes the cheques. If that is true, what is his function and why bother joining such a government and getting appointed to that position? But he has got the authority if he had the will to use it.

Religious influence is diminishing in Ireland in almost every sphere of life but as regards education nothing has changed. So, not only has this Minister failed to move the agenda forward, he has failed to keep up with the people.

As regards what he could have done - the setting up of trusts to protect the religious orders was seen, and even discussed here and elsewhere, in good time for action to be taken but nothing was done. Money flows from the Dept of Education to these very orders that are refusing to pay. That could be used as a lever.

There are a thousand steps that could be taken from instructing schools to respect the right of children to opt out of religious classes, to removing religion from other subjects, such as English and Irish, to restricting access to kids by priests and other non-teaching prosletisers, to ending compulsory prayers, to ending compulsory trips to the local church for Masses etc, to revising the curriculum that gives credence to one true church...

But why bother? This Minister is toast and his legacy is "I could do nothing". His predecessors were able to bring in sweeping pro-church policies but he claims he is powerless to reverse them. I don't believe him and will be glad to see the back of him. I also regret my many posts, here and elsewhere calling for his support.

The Black Oil

You can't even raise the issue without the inevitable backlash, rabble rabble.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/priests-group-labels-quinn-s-comments-on-religious-education-unacceptable-1.1668791

The Association of Catholic Priests has described Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn’s suggestion to reduce teaching time for religious studies as “unhelpful, unwarranted and unacceptable”.

“It seems at best a hapless effort to devise educational policy ‘on the hoof’ and, at worst, an indication of an intention to undermine religious education in the vast majority of our schools,” the organisation said in a statement. “Populist opinions – expressed as ‘suggestions’ – do little to further educational change, even when everyone agrees that it is necessary”.

The association claims that such opinions will be interpreted as threats, will fail to reassure those in discussion with the Minister or Catholic parents. It added that the comments could also damage advanced negotiations to provide “a wider choice for parents”.

I Heart Internet

Zamboni wrote: »

I am interested to see what people here believe could have been achieved by a minister in a junior party in a coalition with a centre right Christian party as the lead.
What could have been done to force the religious congregations to hand over school properties they have hidden behind a complex trust?
What uproar would there have been by parents if patronage was forced out of catholic patrons. The surveys showed a lot of parents were quite happy with the status quo.

It's not a party political issue per se. The existence of religiously owned and operated schools is guaranteed by our constitution. That cannot be changed by the wave of a (labour) magic wand.

Zamboni wrote: »

There is no way Educate Together would have attained second level patronage in 2013 if a FG or FF minister was in the DoE.

Isn't Mary O' Rourke (FF) a board member and champion of Educate Together? Don't think it's as simple as Lab vs the rest.

Someone said that Quinn would soon be replaced by a Catholic Minister for Education and progress would cease. I suspect the opposite is the case. The RCC are looking to do a deal. They are keen to divest schools in certain locations where they have too many and there is demand for alternatives. But the RCC are (understandably) worried by regular comments from Minister Quinn suggesting that the religious ethos of ALL schools is under threat.

If Quinn wants schools divested. He should support the right of religious patrons to run religious ethos schools (not suggesting that religious formation be removed, etc) and that would encourge patrons to divest schools to other patrons, safe in the knowledge that they may continue to operate religious ethos schools for those who want them.

Banbh

The existence of religiously owned and operated schools is guaranteed by our constitution.

I have never heard anyone speak against this. The problem is the existence of a religiously owned and operated monopoly of schools, paid for by those who cannot use them or must suffer discrimination when they do.

Brian Shanahan

I Heart Internet wrote: »

The existence of religiously owned and operated schools is guaranteed by our constitution.

No what we have is the existence of state owned and operated schools run under religious rules, something expressly forbidden by the constitution (under the provision banning of endowment of religion).

I've no problem with religiously run schools, but let the religious orders pay for them themselves, and let the parents too stupid to have their children get a decent education* send their kids to them.

*When results are corrected for selection biases (i.e. intelligence and wealth) religious educational establishments always perform worse than their secular counterparts. And I'm not going to link to the respective studies, they've been linked to often enough.

I Heart Internet

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

No what we have is the existence of state owned and operated schools run under religious rules, something expressly forbidden by the constitution (under the provision banning of endowment of religion).

I've no problem with religiously run schools, but let the religious orders pay for them themselves, and let the parents too stupid to have their children get a decent education* send their kids to them.

This is not the case in Ireland. Religious ethos schools in Ireland are not owned or run by the state.

expectationlost

I Heart Internet wrote: »

It's not a party political issue per se. The existence of religiously owned and operated schools is guaranteed by our constitution. That cannot be changed by the wave of a (labour) magic wand.

Isn't Mary O' Rourke (FF) a board member and champion of Educate Together? Don't think it's as simple as Lab vs the rest.

Someone said that Quinn would soon be replaced by a Catholic Minister for Education and progress would cease. I suspect the opposite is the case. The RCC are looking to do a deal. They are keen to divest schools in certain locations where they have too many and there is demand for alternatives. But the RCC are (understandably) worried by regular comments from Minister Quinn suggesting that the religious ethos of ALL schools is under threat.

If Quinn wants schools divested. He should support the right of religious patrons to run religious ethos schools (not suggesting that religious formation be removed, etc) and that would encourge patrons to divest schools to other patrons, safe in the knowledge that they may continue to operate religious ethos schools for those who want them.

this is the problem it indicates that quinn doesn't want provide enough secular education, he wants catholics schools to continue to dominate and 'be inclusive', this isn't a worry for the catholic schools, everytime quinn says this the safer they are, it shows they are not under threat, it shows quinn isn't willing to stand by the constitution and provide religious (of the null type) for the rest of us.

this is what we're giving out about

recedite

Zamboni wrote: »

I am interested to see what people here believe could have been achieved by a minister...

1. In locales that voted in such a way to warrant a change of patronage, that should have been completed by now. Neither Fine Gael nor the few parents who might feel obliged to move their kids to an adjacent RC school can stand in the way of a democratic mandate.

2. RC hierarchy indicated a willingness to withdraw into a fewer number of schools, but with an increased "genuineness" of parental committment to the ethos in those schools that remained. So no resistance from RCC there.

3. Cribbing for years over the value of dilapidated old school buildings is nonsensical, especially when the owners owe millions for abuse redress. Just slap them with a CPO and pay them €1, or even better, fine them for having derelict buildings. Anyway the real cost of schools is in paying all the salaries and the maintenance & energy costs.

4. The final straw for me was building a brand new State secondary school just down the road, entirely with public money, and then handing it to a religious patron to control, who promptly introduced a policy whereby those who regularly attend their church services and submit their kids for confirmation, can obtain a certificate which entitles them to first priority on the waiting list (which is already full for 2014 and 2015 intake years, despite the school not even being open yet).

I Heart Internet

recedite wrote: »

2. RC hierarchy indicated a willingness to withdraw into a fewer number of schools, but with an increased "genuineness" of parental committment to the ethos in those schools that remained. So no resistance from RCC there.

There's one of the main stumbling blocks. Quinn is putting the frighteners on the RCC by talking about the removal of religious education from ALL schools and with hte report on patronage recommending a "watering down" of ethos in religious ethos schools (where they are not transferred to new patrons).

The RCC, I suspect, would be happy to do deals and hand over patronage of certain schools in pinch areas, but while the Minister continues to put out whispers (and more than that) about the end of religious teahing in schools, he's not going to get far.

recedite

I agree. For those on the secular side, he is all talk and no action. For those on the faith school side, he keeps menacing them with empty threats. Its counter-productive.

Has any other minister ever used public money to build a state school, and then give it over to a religious group to control in whatever way they see fit?

expectationlost

I Heart Internet wrote: »

There's one of the main stumbling blocks. Quinn is putting the frighteners on the RCC by talking about the removal of religious education from ALL schools and with hte report on patronage recommending a "watering down" of ethos in religious ethos schools (where they are not transferred to new patrons).

The RCC, I suspect, would be happy to do deals and hand over patronage of certain schools in pinch areas, but while the Minister continues to put out whispers (and more than that) about the end of religious teahing in schools, he's not going to get far.

he made a suggestion, a personal suggestion about time mangement, he didn't say he'd actually do anything or that he has power to do what you suggest GOD! http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/cut-religion-to-free-up-class-time-ruairi-quinn-29950052.html

Banbh

he made a suggestion, a personal suggestion

In his personal capacity as the Minister for Education. He keeps forgetting that.

expectationlost

Banbh wrote: »

In his personal capacity as the Minister for Education. He keeps forgetting that.

i will grant you that, but you still have to look at what he said and could do,

this is not what he said or could do

[B]I Heart Internet[/B] wrote:

Quinn is putting the frighteners on the RCC by talking about the removal of religious education from ALL schools

Hotblack Desiato

Ridiculously nonsensical puff piece in today's IT:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/catholic-schools-ethos-benefits-ireland-s-pluralist-society-1.1669879

Catholic schools’ ethos benefits Ireland’s pluralist society

:rolleyes:

A significant amount of public discourse around faith-based education in recent times suggests that denominational schools are a block to the development of a genuinely pluralist society. The opposite applies. Catholic schools in Ireland today provide for diversity and cater for it in a variety of creative ways. Some have up to 44 different nationalities in their enrolment.

What the hell is the relevance of the nationalities of pupils?? Zero. Just a way of deflecting away from the elephant in the room. Religious schools exist in order to perpetrate religious discrimination.

Genuine pluralism is not attained by ignoring the right to religious freedom of the majority. In responding to the needs of our times, let us avoid the mistake of becoming victims to a national state of amnesia in relation to a tradition that has served us, and others, well.

Uh oh, the 'yes we control 96% of primary schools but we're really the victims here' card.

Not surprisingly, the IT has not enabled comments on this article!

The Black Oil

Quinn putting the frighteners in the RCC?

No. What is going on here is business as usual in little old Ireland. Minister or anyone in public life makes a comment the about religion and the church reps jump right back with their brand of intolerance (yes, that word) and doom mongering at any slight criticism.

Social progress in millimetres.

Brian Shanahan

ninja900 wrote: »

Ridiculously nonsensical puff piece in today's IT:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/catholic-schools-ethos-benefits-ireland-s-pluralist-society-1.1669879

:rolleyes:

What the hell is the relevance of the nationalities of pupils?? Zero. Just a way of deflecting away from the elephant in the room. Religious schools exist in order to perpetrate religious discrimination.

Uh oh, the 'yes we control 96% of primary schools but we're really the victims here' card.

Not surprisingly, the IT has not enabled comments on this article!

You know it's articles like this that I can no longer read the Irish Times. It used be the only national paper worth getting, thank you very much Geraldine Kennedy for destroying an Irish institution.

eyescreamcone

I'd like to hear some thoughts with regard to the ECHR decision which found the state liable for sexual abuse in a primary school which was previously decreed (by the Supreme Court) to be run by an independant board.

Could this ruling affect the provision of religious education in what are "state schools"?

robindch

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Could this ruling affect the provision of religious education in what are "state schools"?

Was thinking that myself -- the Constitution does not say that the state should "provide" education, but that it should "provide for" education, thereby allowing third-parties to acquire control of schools while having the state pay for them.

Prima facie, I'd have said that this places control squarely back onto the shoulders of the state, at least when it comes to protecting kids.

Banbh

It would seem to follow that it would also fall to the state - in addition to protecting kids in these schools - to ensure that the same kids are free from religious indoctrination, where that is against the wishes of the parents. But this is Ireland where the law is actually interpreted by the 'sure-you-know-what-I-mean' convention and the Minister for Education thinks he's only in charge of the inkwells.

eyescreamcone

It would be interesting to hear what a legal expert would make of it.

I reckon it could force the state to provide schools with "no religious instruction" to those of no religion.

Effectively removing religion from all schools.

The ECHR is the daddy!!!

Banbh

I am increasingly of the opinion that the way to go for those who want religion out of the schools - or at least to leave our kids alone - is through legal action. The political route has proven useless as we have an avowed secularist Minister for Ed who can't/won't tackle the problem. There is nothing like a judgement from Europe to force the hand of Irish politicians.

If we are serious about making change happen, we should set up an umbrella group and start fund-raising.

recedite

robindch wrote: »

Prima facie, I'd have said that this places control squarely back onto the shoulders of the state, at least when it comes to protecting kids.

That crossed my mind, but what actually happened is that the State (the employer) tried to any abdicate responsibility for the teacher. The Irish courts took the view that the patron was the regulatory body taking full responsibility for any staff in its school. The ECHR took the view that the State was responsible, as the employer.
It highlights the nonsensical position whereby the State allows a private institution to recruit personnel and then sign them up for the State payroll.
But this ruling does not direct that the State must provide education for its citizens directly through its own State schools.
Maybe some other case will eventually be taken, but the issue would have to be equality of access to education. Not the failure to protect children from abusive teachers, as in this case.

eyescreamcone

recedite wrote: »

That crossed my mind, but what actually happened is that the State (the employer) tried to any abdicate responsibility for the teacher. The Irish courts took the view that the patron was the regulatory body taking full responsibility for any staff in its school. The ECHR took the view that the State was responsible, as the employer.
It highlights the nonsensical position whereby the State allows a private institution to recruit personnel and then sign them up for the State payroll.
But this ruling does not direct that the State must provide education for its citizens directly through its own State schools.
Maybe some other case will eventually be taken, but the issue would have to be equality of access to education. Not the failure to protect children from abusive teachers, as in this case.

But it does drag the state back into the middle of the mess that it has been trying very hard to avoid.

It could be argued that the state as the ultimate controller/employer should treat all children equally and not force those of no religion into the only schools in the area - ie. those with a religious ethos. (?)

Very interesting.

recedite

Well that makes a couple of different but related grounds for complaint in existing schools then;
1. Equality of access (religious priority in waiting lists and religious discrimination when hiring teachers as state employees)
2. Equality of treatment (even where faith schools are required to admit all applicants, those of a different or no faith are subjected to an unwanted ethos at the State's behest/expense.

The State can no longer throw up its hands and say "nothing to do with us, these are private institutions".