A “one-model-fits-all secular system” is not appropriate for Irish education, a leading Church of Ireland cleric has 
said.
Retired Church of Ireland Archdeacon of Dublin Gordon Linney, writing in Church of Ireland magazine Catalyst, he said that, while educational reform was needed, it shouldn’t be “on terms dictated by a secular agenda represented to be inclusive when it is not”.
He insisted that the problem of limited school places “was not church control or church-owned schools but a shortage of school places which arose from the failure of the State to plan for the future especially in developing areas around our towns and cities”.
And he expressed concern that any change to the education system would damage educational provision for minority churches and other faith communities. There was a danger that “we could end up with a secular State system on the one hand – probably underfunded – and a Catholic system on the other with little in between for minorities,” he said.
He recalled that in the budget of October 2008 the Government “singled out the Protestant secondary schools for severe financial cuts” and the withdrawal of other vital educational supports without warning and with immediate effect.
“It was seen by many Protestants as revenge by the Department of Education for a High Court action taken against them by the schools some time earlier,” he said.
Meanwhile, the head of the Catholic Schools Partnership has said that Catholic schools should have limited, achievable goals that included a clear grounding in Catholic beliefs and values.
Fr Michael Drumm told a conference on education in Kilkenny at the weekend that criticisms of the way Catholic schools were managed said more about the commentators making the criticism than the reality in schools.
Catholic schools were caring and inclusive communities that had adapted to demographic change and led the way in integrating the immigrants into local communities, he said.
Catholic schools made an enormous contribution to Irish society and were models of inclusivity and care for all the students who attended them, he said. This dynamic role would continue into the future.
And at the annual conference of the Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools (AMCSS) said that there was a danger that Ireland could “sleep-walk” its way into losing its Catholic schools.
Mr Noel Merrick said that the contribution of Catholic schools to the common good had often been acknowledged “but without vigilance, we could as a nation and as a Catholic community sleep-walk ourselves into losing a key contributor to our national well-being”.
He added that second level education had a mix of state and faith-based patronage, and he insisted that this “mix and choice must be provided for into the future”.
A transparent process in which Catholic patrons had the same opportunity as other patrons to be second level providers was “badly needed”, he added.