In a modern, multi-ethnic, pluralist State many parents feel there is a greater need than ever for their children to have access to a multi-denominational education. But, says Paul Rowe of Educate Together, the obstacles to giving people this choice are still huge.

Any parent thinking of volunteering at a parents' evening would do well to bear in mind that it could have unforeseen consequences.

For it was on just such a night 14 years ago that Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together (ET), first put himself forward for election to the parent-teacher association at his child's school.

This was to start a chain of involvement - and passion for educational issues - that, ultimately, led to his appointment to his current position, as chief executive officer of Educate Together in August 2002.

Educate Together schools have been set up and developed by groups of parents in a local area who wish to send their children to a multi-denominational, co-educational primary school. The schools, which are recognised by the Department of Education, are non-fee-paying and operate according to the same rules governing all National schools.

There are, however, some significant differences, according to Rowe.

"It is a concept that is built around an idea of the education and human rights of the individual in the school," he says. "At the core, a child walking into an Educate Together school is walking into an environment in which there is a legal guarantee for a respect of his or her identity irrespective of their social, cultural or religious background. Everything about the school is built around that concept."

Teaching staff at ET schools are never in a position where they feel obliged to inculcate a particular viewpoint, says Rowe, because its schools are prohibited from preferring or promoting a particular religious viewpoint.

"The overall benefit is that at the end of the process, the child has come through it completely at ease and comfortable with the fact that other people think completely differently, and that this is not a threat in any way to their own identity," he says.

"We would feel that this is a huge benefit in terms of preparing children to live in a world which is so much more radicallydiverse than say, for example, the one in which I grew up."

Rowe is quick to point out the respect he has for the efforts made by denominational schools to adapt to the increasingly multi-denominational nature of Irish society. Nevertheless, it is hard to escape the subtle feeling that in outlining the positive aspects of the ET approach, he is also highlighting the areas where he feels other schools fall down. He stresses that he is not advocating all schools should be formed along the ET model in the future. The real issue, he believes, is the need for balance in the system as a whole.

"This is certainly not a negative agenda. This is an agenda for making appropriate provision for our diversifying society," he says. "The problem is where you have a community in which there is a multiplicity of the same type of school, there is no choice. . .Currently, there is 99 per cent denominational provision. We would suggest that it is actually negative to the future health of denominational provision for there not to be an alternative.

"Article 42 of the Constitution specifically prohibits the State from obliging the family to send their child to a school, or a specific type of school, recognised by the State. Yet the State is overseeing an educational environment in which families only have a choice of a denominational provider. Now what we're saying is that the State has to take proactive action in order to ensure that there is balance in the system."

With this in mind, he says ET is trying to advance the idea that when the need for a school is recognised, the Department will immediately start to plan for the provision of that school. Currently, interested parties - often parents - first have to get any school up and running, before receiving long-term funding from the Department.

"There are acknowledged needs in, say, areas of rapid development of housing that that approach is no longer sustainable," he says. "It beggars belief that a responsible Government can't plan to provide the schools in time for the people who are moving into those areas, rather than waiting for a crisis to develop and then having to adopt emergency measures to try and resolve it.

"It is a very difficult task to actually establish a brand new school in an area, given the regulatory environment. . .If what I'm describing isn't objective, it's very hard to explain the doubling of the numbers of ET schools in the last four years, and the consistent, sustained demand on us to open more schools."

This demand could, he admits, extend to the opening of second-level ET schools in the future. Surely there is some frustration when a child leaves an ET school at the age of 12 or 13 only to go to a second-level school which does not have the same ET ethos?

"I think it is a frustration experienced by people in the primary sector widely. The National School curriculum for all National Schools is a child-centred curriculum. Children are assessed on the full range of their abilities," he says. "The system is not dominated by one single State exam, only assessing a narrow band of academic subjects. So I think there is a huge difficulty that conscientious educators at primary level feel with what's going on at second level." Interestingly, Rowe says there are a number of groups of parents around the State who are actively looking at the possibility of setting up a second-level ET school.

Given that such a school would have to operate within the constraints of the current Leaving Certificate system, however, the extent of the challenge to those involved seems clear.

Nevertheless, Rowe is adamant that as ET moves into second-level education, it will do so with a view to reforming the system as it currently stands. The second-level system needs to recognise the different ways in which people learn, he says, an area where it can learn a lot from its primary equivalent.

"Obviously, we would have to work in the context of the curricular regulations for second-level education," he says. "We don't have any formal policy on these areas at this stage. But we would be emphatically in favour of the overall adoption of the multiple intelligence approach in second-level education, which must recognise the full range of human abilities.

"At primary level we have full recognition of the fact that children learn interactively, by group work, by individual study and that the curriculum must be delivered through all these different methods," he says. "But at second level, unfortunately, the almost universal paradigm of education is still the 19th-century approach of the teacher at the blackboard and the serried ranks of note-taking students."

Educating Ethically

Educate Together (ET) is currently preparing its own ethical education curriculum, which it hopes to launch in late spring.

While it is prepared specifically for teachers at ET schools, the organisation hopes it will also be of interest to teachers in general.

The curriculum has four broad strands:

Moral and spiritual development (self-awareness, self-esteem, appreciation of difference, life skills, conflict resolution etc.)

Equality and justice issues (rights of the child, leadership, bullying, gender equality, racism, me as a citizen etc.)

Belief systems (major world religions, signs and symbols, religious leaders, fables and parables, places of worship etc.)

Ethics and the environment (local and world resources, impact on the environment, heritage, recycling, inter- dependence and fair trade etc.)