Protestant schools are “under a creeping threat” the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Most Rev Michael Jackson (pictured) has claimed.

Speaking at a conference of the Church of Ireland Primary School Management Association last weekend he said he was not sure whether such schools were “in a cynical way being left to starve through atrophy”.

His words follow on from warnings by a number of leading Church of Ireland clergy about the attitude of the Department of Education in respect of their schools. In 2009, the Church of Ireland said that their schools had been disproportionately targeted for cuts by the Department of Education.

Archbishop Jackson said that, with regard to Government policy on national schools under Protestant management, feelings had moved rapidly “from one of concern to one of alarm,” according to The Irish Times. 

Church of Ireland members had “long sought to take our place and to play our part in the life of communities . . . where we live and more widely. This is not sectarianism. Nor again is it superiority complex,” he said.

He noted “small schools will be hit hard by the phased increase in pupil threshold for the allocation of teachers. While the needs of island schools and disadvantaged schools are to be considered in a special way, there is no clear suggestion that primary schools under Protestant patronage are to be afforded such consideration.”

The conference also heard new research showing that one in five children attending Church of Ireland schools comes from a Catholic home.

Only half of the children being taught at Church of Ireland schools are actually members of the Church of Ireland. The parents of the other 49 per cent described themselves as Catholic, from some other unspecified Christian church or as “non-religious”.

The survey was carried out following the establishment of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism by the Department of Education and Skills in April 2011. 

The survey found that church patronage and ethos were important to the Protestant community with almost a quarter of Protestant respondents saying it was the most important factor in their choice of school. 

However, the support for faith schools was also quite high from those of other denominations and there was broad recognition of the importance of religious education.

The questionnaire was distributed to parents of Junior Infant and Sixth Class pupils in all Church of Ireland schools and elicited a massive response with 85 percent of all schools responding. The results reflect the views of 2,143 families.

The questionnaire covered five areas including background information on the parents responding, their reasons for choosing the school, their expectations of the school, how well the school met their expectations and the religious beliefs of the parents.

The survey found that the parents in Church of Ireland schools make up a cultural, linguistic and religiously diverse community:

38pc of respondents were from the main Protestant groupings

22.5pc of parents overall are Catholic

20pc of parents come from an unspecified Christian background

5.6pc of parents come from other Protestant groups including Pentecostalists and smaller cell churches

7.4pc of respondents declared they belonged to no religion

5.3pc gave no information

Parents actively choose Protestant schools for their children for a range of academic, cultural and faith reasons:

46.2pc felt that academics (reputation, standards and teachers) were most important

21pc felt the atmosphere (care and individual attention) of the school was most important

17.5pc felt that faith issues (patronage, ethos and religious education) were most important – 55.6pc of parents rated faith issues as an important reason for choosing a Protestant school as opposed to being the most important reason

The faith context of the school and religious education are also seen as important issues for the majority of parents, according to the survey:

24pc of all Protestant respondents felt that the school’s ethos was an important factor in their choice

38.3pc of the Roman Catholic respondents rated the faith community of the school positively

Overall parents seemed extremely satisfied with the schools rating social issues, academic achievement, the sense of community, faith development and inclusion highly:

96.7pc of parents rated social development (issues of self esteem and discipline) at their school highly

93.6pc felt positive about the schools’ academic achievement

91.8pc rated the sense of community within the school positively

49.5pc rated the faith development aspect of the school positively – this included parents outside the Protestant faith and parents of no faith at all

“This survey gives people a broader sense of the complex picture of why a school’s ethos is important,” commented Dr Lodge. “It is not a simple issue and the findings show that this is a complex area and one that we need to explore further in an Irish context.”

The survey was designed by Dr David Tuohy SJ, Dr Anne Lodge and Dr Ken Fennelly. It was sponsored by the Church of Ireland Primary Schools Managers Association, the Church of Ireland College of Education and the General Synod Board of Education.