The Education Green Paper was a long time coming and its future is unclear following the general election. So far, because of a number of urgent problems in other areas of public life, the debate has not received the national attention which it deserves, but it has been living up to expectations, nonetheless. Hundreds of meetings, seminars, and conferences are being held all over the State to discuss the Paper's implications. The most important of these are the Seminars sponsored by the Department of Education. The Departmental Seminars to date have been in Cork, Limerick, Sligo and Athlone, and others are said to be planned for Dublin, Galway and Waterford, subject to agreement from the new Minister for Education.
During Mary O'Rourke's tenure as Minister for Education, promises were made by educationalists known to be involved in drafting the Green Paper that the Green Paper debate would extend beyond the educational interest groups. Presumably the Departmental Seminars were organised to fulfil that function---whether they have succeeded is another question.
The format was that the seminars were held on weekday mornings and commenced with a brief speech from the Minister followed by speeches from four platform speakers, all of whom represented different educational interests. After a coffee break an open forum was allowed for one and a half hours. The average attendance at the seminars was five hundred. Senior officials from the Department also sat on the platform and responded to points made by the audience. Invites were issued to all the organisations interested in the debate, and members of the public who wished to attend had to write to the Department for a pass. Somewhat less than the great democratic exercise promised!
Despite being a major participant in the debate, the Campaign to Separate Church and State (CSCS) did not receive official invites to the Seminars. Following a letter requesting an invitation, and a number of phone calls, the Department consented to allow three representatives of CSCS to attend each seminar. In fairness, the Department later invited CSCS to send representatives to the Dail Debate on the Green Paper and a copy of the Minister's Senate speech was sent to the Campaign Chairperson.
At the first Seminar in Cork on 12th October, a number of CSCS members attended, but were unable to attract the attention of the Chair. Members of Educate Together were able to articulate some of the grievances of the Multi-Denominational School movement but, that apart, the main responses from the Seminar related to the need for greater financial resources and thinly disguised conservatism.
CSCS was more fortunate at the Limerick Seminar on 29th October. The platform speakers were: Sr. Eileen Randles, Conference of Major Religious Superiors; Carmel Foley, Council for the Status of Women; Jim Dorney, Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI); Sherlock, Foreign observer from OECD. The following points were made by ALICE LAWLESS for the Campaign:
1. On behalf of the Campaign welcomed the whole process of the Green Paper, said it raises our hopes that the rights of minorities in relation to education would be fully debated and that, as a result, the same minorities would be better facilitated than heretofore.
2. Talked about the monopoly situation with regard to education . Referred to a speech made by Sister Eileen Randles of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors at UCD some weeks earlier, where she talked about parents' choice of school. Asked where is that choice evident, that in reality there was no choice.
3. Campaign welcomes the concern expressed in Green Paper that the constitutional rights of children be safeguarded. Said Campaign was calling for a clear separation of religious and secular instruction in primary schools. Talked of the nonsense of having a withdrawal clause when the child would be exposed to indoctrination in other subject areas, because of the integrated nature of the curriculum.
4. Teacher Training. Own experience---necessary to engage in lies and subterfuge to become a teacher. Mentioned my own children still having to deny their personal beliefs to become primary teachers. Stated that teachers were public servants. Stated that CSCS supported entry of Colleges of Education into the Central Applications Office/Central Admissions Service system, that we were heartened by the abolition of the interview test at Mary Immaculate College of Education and hoped other Colleges would follow suit.
Asked for the application of the 1908 Universities Act to the Colleges of Education, in particular the stipulations that recruitment of staff and enrolling of students should not be based on religious belief, and that attendance at religious instruction, worship or theological teaching should be optional for students.
5. Stated that the underlying philosophy of primary schools was faith formation, and said it was educationally damaging in a modern democracy to have as teachers only people of a particular religious orthodoxy.
Asked that the current education debate address these important issues, and that the career of primary teacher be open to all citizens, irrespective of religious or philosophical outlook.
Oliver Cussen---Department Official dealing with third level: Said the Green Paper was already addressing the separation of religious and secular instruction.
Said that recruitment of teachers was a very important issue; that teachers should be recruited on merit and suitability. "Of course considerations of ethos enter into it. All employees should at least have respect for whatever the school ethos happens to be".
The next Green Paper debate that a Campaign member took part in was the ICTU Seminar on education, held at the Riverside Centre, Dublin on November 5th. The following is a report of the seminar given by DICK SPICER.
The meeting started with an address by Minister Brennan, who referred to the need for change, appealed for an open mind; the willingness to listen was stressed.
An address by Oliver Cussen, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Education, drew attention to the Minister's Senate speech which widened the interpretation of "enterprise". He outlined the proposed changes and related these to aims of Green Paper.
CSCS (first called): Outlined unmet need for nondenominational education in primary and secondary areas. Asked:
1. Would Department consider targeting resources to schools based on the actual numbers of children attending from a deprived background. This would encourage all schools to take in numbers and avoid VEC schools becoming sink holes?
2. Would Department consider assessing type of school required at primary level by parents by means of survey or register, and shouldn't some means be developed of maintaining state ownership of property to take account of needs in a 'changing world' (title of Green Paper)?
3. Does not the downgrading of the percentage weight of parents' representatives to 2 in 11 from 2 in 8 amount to a conflict between aims and changes proposed?
Response: Assistant Secretary Cussens managed to avoid giving direct answers to any of the points raised. TUI representatives made noises off about references to VEC schools and sink holes.
Coffee followed. Patricia O'Donovan urged participation in the workshops in order to have the questions raised by ICTU in their response to the Green Paper.
Address by John Coolahan: He argued that the thrust of the Green Paper was thoroughly progressive, although the introduction of Chapter 4 jarred somewhat with the overall thrust. Agreed that the Minister's Senate speech was a welcome indication of this.
Dermot McCarthy, Director NESC, delivered a paper seeking to address the importance of education as a factor in economic growth. Argued that domestic industry in Ireland still suffered from the British disease of low productivity. Related this to inflexible management and workforce and suggested education, on international evidence, could assist in developing flexibility.
CSCS question taken in discussion: Would Mr. McCarthy agree that the inflexibility detected in surveys was greatest in those countries (UK and Ireland) with the least flexible class systems? Was there not a cause then to question the channelling of state funding to fee paying elite religious-run schools, which perpetuate a rigid class hierarchy? McCarthy agreed such a matter was open to question. Coolahan said the Green paper left the door somewhat open to future action along those lines. Some bantering with delegates from Jesuit Colleges was a feature of Coolahan's remarks.
After lunch: address by Dr. Kevin Williams, Mater Dei Institute. Questioned whether Boards of Management could effectively or realistically shoulder burdens imposed by Green Paper. Suggested that, as all sides (owners and parents) were objecting to balance of powers on Boards, that the balance was right.
Discussion: TUI raised the matter of Local Education Authorities, without a great deal of support. Parents protested at balance on Boards, with some support.
Workshops: I joined primary discussion and raised points about ownership of property, duplication of resources by taxpayers, and burden on parents. Need for guaranteed right of access to all National Schools; and the need for the Department to assess type of primary school required. All these featured in the final workshop report, which will be the basis of the ICTU submission. Secondary workshop included point about channelling resources to schools on basis of numbers of individual students of disadvantaged background, and questioning of channelling of funds to fee paying schools. TUI to include these points in their response to the Government. {End of report from DICK SPICER.}
The ICTU Education Seminar took place on November 5th, the Sligo Departmental Seminar was on the following day. The Sligo Seminar was interesting in that one of the platform speakers was Bishop Thomas Flynn, Secretary of the Catholic Hierarchy's Episcopal Commission on Education. The other platform speakers were: Ed Walsh, President of Limerick University; Frank Murray of the Community and Comprehensive Schools Association; and Charlie Lennon, Secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland. The Dept. of Education was represented by Oliver Cussens, Asst. Secretary; Noel Lindsay, Secretary; and another official.
Ed Walshe spoke first, and strongly defended the Green Paper. He referred to an Irish tendency to bury progressive documents under an avalanche of negative criticism. The Paper was correct in identifying the need to concentrate more on science; international surveys showed Irish pupils to be very weak in scientific subjects. He welcomed the Paper's endorsement of sex education at primary and secondary levels.
Frank Murray drew attention to the achievements of the Community Schools in providing 40% of the total adult education provided. It was noteworthy that he was critical of the Green Paper's neglect of the spiritual aspect of education.
The only part of Charlie Lennon's speech that was relevant to Church/State relations was a reference to his union's policy favouring equality of representation on school Boards of management between parents, Church nominees, and teachers.
Bishop Flynn spoke last, and the Chairperson indicated that he had asked to speak last. It was clear from the number of clergy present that the Bishop had also ensured a good attendance of his own sympathisers. He began by defining the function of reform as recognising what is good in the existing system and building on it. There was a venerable tradition in Ireland of allowing a prisoner who was condemned to death one last request---a speech from the dock and, as the religious Patron was the condemned man of the Green Paper, he wished to assert his right to make such a speech. His declaration that "we don't deserve the sentence" brought applause, noticeably from only one relatively small section of the audience.
Bishop Flynn defined the role of the Patron as follows: defender of the denominational character of the schools; arbiter of disputes; co-ordinator of the diocesan panels for teachers who have become redundant. He exercises a regional function by appointing Boards of Management. The clergy get involved in all sorts of inconvenience in the course of their educational duties. Catholic schools are held in trust by the Patron for the Catholic community; the Green Paper was undermining that trust and, in so doing, was threatening the basis of any free society. The Bishop concluded his speech by defending the existence of small rural schools which were an essential part of parish life in those areas. He also thought the interests of the Church of Ireland should be respected.
Following the coffee break the first speaker from the floor was a Church of Ireland clergyman, who delivered what can only be described as a rant in defence of Church of Ireland schools. The manner of delivery, rather than the contents, antagonised some sections of the audience and added to an atmosphere of ecclesiastical intransigence that Bishop Flynn's speech had helped to create.
The next speaker assailed the Green Paper in a slow and thick rural accent, lamenting that homo sapiens, who had been nourished by classical/religious education for two thousand years, was being replaced by homo technologicus.
I spoke next as Chairperson of the Campaign and made the following points:
1. Last year I collected case histories from families experiencing discrimination through the school system in different parts of the country. It would be a very poor reflection if families in these circumstances were forced to make their case in public.
2. One issue in the Green paper we are concerned about is access or enrolment policy. There is a legal obligation on parents to send their children to school, but no obligation on schools to take them. Schools should be forced to specify what enrolment criteria they used.
3. Bishop Flynn had said that 95% of the population belonged to the main religious denominations. It could not be assumed from that that 95% of the population favoured denominational education. Parents should be asked whether they favoured denominational education or not (applause).
4. We are proposing that all parents be given the opportunity of registering with the Department of Education whether they prefer denominational or inclusive schools for their children. Inclusive schools are schools which cater for all members of the community, regardless of their beliefs. The Community Schools, with some modification, could be considered as inclusive schools.
At this stage, the Chairperson interrupted to say that I had made my point. Shortly afterwards, John Colgan from CSCS introduced himself as a parent, a lecturer, a former VEC member and a founder of CSCS. Taking up the question of enterprise, he said: "It is a myth to assume that you can create an enterprise culture by providing the subject (enterprise). Just look at the European Values Studies of 1981, which contrasted the children in Ireland educated in Roman Catholic schools and you will see that, unfortunately, those educated in Roman Catholic schools show all the attitudes of factory fodder". (Booing from audience.)
John Colgan went on to speak about the right of teachers to freedom of conscience, the injustice of having all the Teacher Training Colleges in denominational control, and to point out that the endowment of religion was unconstitutional.
Several speakers later a parent spoke about the difficulties she faced in having no choice but to send her daughter to a Catholic school. She said: I have to make sure that I pick her up at a certain time each day. Otherwise my child has to kneel and say prayers at the end of the class and she finds this very embarrassing. The speaker was a friend of a CSCS member. It was as though a new case history was unfolding before our eyes.
The last CSCS speaker was Beryl Ryan. She referred to an exchange that had taken place earlier between a spokesperson of Sligo Multi-Denominational School and Noel Lindsay. Responding to the point that the Multi-Denominational School had no proper premises, while an empty premises owned by the Catholic Church was not being made available, Lindsay said that the Department encouraged the owners to sell or lease their premises to Multi-D Schools in those circumstances. Beryl Ryan asked, should all future schools not remain in public ownership so that, if popular preferences changed, the schools could be leased to Multi-D groups? Her second point was that, because of the number of complaints from parents concerning the denominational character of schools, should an Education Ombudsman be appointed? Lindsay said that such a position would be considered.
Towards the end of the meeting, a school Principal in an 8-teacher Catholic school, angrily asserted that the permeation of a religious ethos throughout the curriculum was the most important part of the curriculum. Earlier, Noel Lindsay had defended the Green Paper against the charge that it ignored spiritual matters, quoting from the Paper. He also said that parents had a constitutional right to withdraw their children from religious instruction---the opt-out clause. For this to be effective, religious ideas could not permeate the curriculum. At another point, he said that the country could not afford a parallel system alongside the denominational schools.
In his summing up, Bishop Flynn mentioned CSCS and Educate Together by name and supported the idea that parents should be given a choice of school. To objections from the audience, he said religion could not be censored from the ordinary programme of denominational schools.
The most newsworthy part of the meeting was the last speech made. In his summing up, Ed Walsh objected to having been asked to speak first, before Bishop Flynn. He said that he preferred multi-denominational schools, rather than the "Victorian, fragmented and divided system that we have";. He was disappointed, he confessed, by the lack of leadership being provided by the Churches in their contribution to the Seminar. The Catholic bishops, in particular, had been blocking reform in education since the 1840s. By quoting from the Green Paper, he showed that many of those criticising it had not read it.
If the Sligo Seminar had been held five years ago, its main thrust would have been an attack by the Bishop and others on the Department. As it was, the Department officials were very clearly seen to be holding the ring between the Churches on one side and a phalanx of speakers critical of the Churches from CSCS, Educate Together and the National Parents' Council, on the other. One speaker from the National Parents' Council, Salina Higgins, was particularly outraged by the undemocratic arrangements for appointing Boards of Management.
Had the Seminar been a football match, the final score would have favoured the pro-democracy team, led on this occasion by CSCS. An account of the Seminar was published in the Irish Times on November 17th, 1992.
REPORT BY MALACHI LAWLESS
The Athlone Seminar was the fourth in a series of Public Seminars which are proving a very successful public relations exercise for the Department of Education's consultative process towards framing proposals for a White Paper on an Education Act. It was held in the sumputous surroundings of the Hudson Bay Hotel in the middle of a General Election. Hence Mr. Brennan was detained elsewhere, and whilst he was away Noel Lindsay, his Departmental Secretary, had full sway, so to speak.
In an audience of about 500, there were up to 50 assorted clerics in attendance. Not one of them, except Sr. Theresa McCormack of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors, took any part in the Seminar, except to take notes, presumably to report back to He Who Must Be Obeyed. For all the world, they appeared like members of a secret police of some state within a state. One of the platform speakers, Dr. Patrick Moriarty, chief of the ESB, introduced his remarks as follows, "Mr. Chairman, Rev. Fathers, Sisters, and Brothers", but stopped there, as if to give acknowledgement publicly to mere 'ladies' or 'gentlemen' would be reported back as a sign of disloyalty by the scribbling clerics. Certainly, to Dr. Moriarty, in the world of Education some people are more important than others.
Quite clearly there was a subtext to the meeting. The Department is enjoying the novelty of a group of citizens coming forward and attempting to strengthen its hand as a partner in education, as CSCS is doing. This was dramatically illustrated when a campaign member demanded to know from the top table, what was the outcome of the Departmental Review Committee on Leases for Educational Buildings, set up in the aftermath of the Carysfort Case. This intervention cut to the heart of the subtext and quite convulsed the meeting. Up to then politeness and consideration was at a maximum, but this question was totally ignored by the top table. This freezing out of such a pointed question stuck out like a sore thumb, and was the talking point in post-Seminar post-mortems. No doubt with the silent scribblers in attendance, the top table was giving no hostages to fortune, but there is also no doubt that the message was heard, taken on board and an answer will have to be given, perhaps in the Dail, in due course.
The other CSCS intervention in Athlone is worth noting, as was the response. The CSCS speaker noted that---
Education at primary level is an essential service, but the problem is that the provision of that service is monopolised by one supplierÑdenominational schools. This, in the CSCS view, puts receivers of the service into a very vulnerable position. There are two major problems: There is the difficulty for some parents of opting out of faith formation, whilst the secular and religious curricula are integrated as a faith forming enterprise in denominational schools; then, as well, there is the absence of any choice of type of school in most urban and rural areas. The Campaign to Separate Church and State had no argument as such with the Churches on this score. CSCS supports the continued financing of all kinds of private faith formation from public funds in conditions in Ireland where there is a choice of schooling as between Denominational and Undenominational Primary Schools; a choice between a Catholic and a Protestant School in an area would thus not qualify as a choice at all.
Where no choice exists, and would not be economically feasible in an area, CSCS does have an argument, not with the Churches or their Parish Schools, but with the Government. It welcomes the intention in the Green Paper to deal with the anomaly arising from the impossibility of opting out of the present integrated curriculum in denominational Primary Schools. Further, in order to be fair to all sides in education, CSCS suggested to the Minister a way forward that would help to satisfy Irish people in all their varied preferences: CSCS asked that a Register of Parental Preferences as to choice of schooling at primary level be set up by the Department, and that the results of that Register be implemented at local level.
Mr. Noel Lindsay, Secretary of the Department of Education, answered the above by agreeing that they were taking account in the Green Paper of the problem regarding the integrated curriculum. He noted the CSCS request for a National Register of Parental Preferences, said that it was an interesting suggestion and they would look into it.
Another speaker from Galway spoke of the difficulty for parents in Galway who wanted a Multi-Denominational School for their children, and had been attempting for three years to gain access to empty schoolroom space in the denominational sector, which had been funded by the Department of Education for educational purposes, but was being allotted by the Churches to other parish use. The Diocesan authorities had responded to the demand from the parents to share publicly funded schoolroom space with a flat refusal. Again, this contribution cut through the consensus of the meeting and, in the presence of so many clerical representatives, silent but notetaking, no response was given from the civil servants present. As they so wisely acknowledged by their silence, this matter was more properly to be addressed in the realm of politics. As such, it was a pity on the day that the politicians had other priorities.
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