An international think-tank has suggested that the Government set up new state-run primary schools to cater for the new multi-ethnic pupil population.
The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), suggests replacing some Catholic schools with new state-run schools.
According to the OECD report, entitled ‘OECD Reviews of Migrant Education: Ireland [1]’, one in 10 primary school students are immigrants. This number is likely to be out-of-date however, as the recession has caused tens of thousands of immigrants to return home. Based on the earlier figures, the report claims that the current patronage model has started to show strains, even though 80 percent of schools can enroll all applicants for places in a given year. Of the remaining 20 percent of schools where there is an over-enrolment, most children are selected on the basis of having a sibling already in the school, followed by whether they live in the locality, followed by whether they belong to the religion of the school.
CSO figures from Census 2006 show that, while immigration has led to a significant change in the school-going population, it has not led to such a radical change in the religious composition of society as might be supposed.
According to the figures, 75 per cent of immigrants were Christians and 54 per cent were Catholic. A majority of the rest were of some other religion, mainly Islam.
The number of multi-denominational and interdenominational primary schools has increased from 39 to 67 from 2005 to 2008. But the number of non-Catholic schools is still small. The number of schools under the patronage of Catholic bishops has only dropped slightly — from 3,039 to 3,027 — over the same period, says the report.
A UK study published last year showed that faith schools are better at tackling extremism and promoting race relations than State -run schools. A third of State-funded (‘maintained’) schools in England are faith-based.
Such schools, the study says, are considerably more likely to be praised by Ofsted, the UK body for monitoring school standards, for building relationships with minority groups in the local community.
The study, by Prof David Jesson, from York University, said the conclusions ran directly counter to the view that religious schools were “divisive” and promoted segregation.
Researchers compared non-religious schools to Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu schools.
In a survey in 2008, a Department of Education audit found that Catholic primary schools topped the table for social inclusion.
The figures showed that Catholic primary schools were more likely to enrol children from the traveller community, from non-Irish backgrounds and children with special needs than other denominational and multidenominational schools.
The OECD also recommends that existing schools should network and co-operate to ensure a more even distribution in the enrolment of immigrant students. Integration Minister John Curran said the report would help the development of the new Intercultural Education Strategy which will be finalised shortly.
A spokesman for the Department of Education said that a joint department-VEC steering group was overseeing the development of the new Co Dublin schools including arrangements for the delivery of religious education and evaluation of the pilot phase.