Catholic schools must be “robust, unapologetic, and committed to their mission”, the educational office of the Catholic Church in Ireland has said. The Catholic Schools Partnership’s new document Catholic Education at Second-level in the Republic of Ireland: Looking to the Future, has also pointed out that religious and other voluntary secondary schools are under-funded compared to VEC and other schools.
The CSP’s document states “that the voluntary school cannot presume that the founding mission will be seen to be legitimate ‘for ever and ever’. The mission will be conferred or denied legitimacy by the individuals involved within the school, i.e. the parents, teachers, students, members of boards of management, trustees and the community at large. The mission is a living and breathing reality, not something set in stone.”
It says, “voluntary schools need to be respectfully unapologetic, robust and committed to their mission in order to ride the waves of the changing nature of culture, values and beliefs.”
Speaking after the launch of the report, CSP Chairman Fr Michael Drumm said: “There is a danger – or a trend – all over Europe and particularly in second-level that schools can become secularised from within. There is a certain inevitability to that unless they pay attention to their voluntary status.”
There was a role for Catholic schools “to be relevant as a counter-cultural voice”, he added. “I think there is a way of being Catholic that is very inclusive and would not be a closed door.”
However, “it would be very untrue to say all Catholic secondary schools are the same. Some serve very disadvantaged social communities, others serve very diverse social communities. So the last thing we want to do is create a uniform picture of what it means to be a Catholic school.”
Fr Drumm said that at its core, the document encourages parents and boards of management to ask: “Why do we have Catholic schools?”
It calls for Catholic schools to draw on six principles in support of their ethos, including that Catholic schools continue Jesus’ work as a teacher, and that they are holistic, respecting both faith and reason.
The report says that “those who dismiss schools with a religious ethos as little more than proselytising and indoctrinating tools of religious authorities show little sense of the long evolution of Catholic schools over many centuries, the rich diversity within the Catholic sector and the principles which underpin such education today.”
While Fr Drumm said that while “the argument for more funding is not the key aim [of the document]”, he called for a clarification of the relationsionship between voluntary schools and the state.
“This should take account of the importance of the voluntary sector in the provision of second-level education, and the fact that there are multiple Catholic and other voluntary patrons of schools,” said Fr Drumm.
The Irish Examiner reports that voluntary secondary schools make up just over half of all 723 second-level schools, but their numbers have been declining in the last 30 years due to closures and amalgamations. The CSP says most Catholic secondary schools are not viable without fundraising, and at levels which are not sustainable by charitable and voluntary organisations.
“It also places a huge burden on school management,” said a CSP spokesperson. “In particular, there are serious concerns about the workload carried by principals in Catholic secondary schools as a result of increased administrative burdens and recent cuts in resources, both in terms of finance and personnel.”
An ESRI report last year identified a “significant gap” – estimated at about 30 per cent – between the funding of faith-based schools and state schools. Unlike state schools, trust companies have to pay a number of running costs themselves, including secretarial assistance, management of building projects and insurance.
