A NATIONAL forum to examine the management of primary schools is to be announced by Minister for Education Mary Hanafin at the INTO conference this morning, in a move that could reduce the dominant influence of the Catholic Church in the management of schools. SEÁN FLYNN, Education Editor, in Kilkenny reports
The one-day forum, scheduled for late June, comes amid increasing concern that the current church-based school patronage system, dating back over a century, does not reflect the diverse nature of modern Irish society.
More than 3,000 of the 3,200 primary schools in the State are controlled by the Catholic Church.
The issue of school patronage was highlighted when immigrant parents struggled to find places for children in Catholic schools in north Co Dublin last year.
The forum, which will bring together church bodies, school management groups, parents and other education partners, is designed to chart a future course for the management of schools in a multicultural and increasingly secular society.
It will consider the challenges that a changing Irish society presents to both existing and new schools; the need to ensure all schools are inclusive, with admissions policies that are open to all; and religious education in schools.
The move is likely to be welcomed by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, who has been seeking round-table discussions on the future management of schools.
In an interview with The Irish Timeslast year, Dr Martin signalled he would be happy to divest some schools of Catholic control if that was what parents wanted. He envisaged a situation where, for example, the Church might relinquish control of one of three schools in an area and hand over control to other groups including the multi-denominational group, Educate Together, which controls more than 40 schools.
Ms Hanafin, meanwhile, faces sustained criticism from teacher unions this week amid growing unrest about a lack of adequate investment in education.
This week's annual conferences of the three teaching unions, representing almost 60,000 teachers in the Republic, will hear how a "funding crisis" is damaging the quality of education in both primary and second-level schools.
The three unions - the INTO, the ASTI and the TUI - fear the funding crisis may escalate as the Government moves to rein in spending.
Ms Hanafin, who will address the INTO conference this morning, has told teaching unions in recent weeks that her capacity to boost education spending is limited because of the tightening budgetary position.
This week's conference will spell out the impact of what the unions see as sustained under-investment in education including: average class sizes in Ireland that are the second-highest in the EU; schools still dependent on fundraising for basic needs like lighting, heating and water; special needs students facing long waiting times for psychological assessments; and some schools forced to turn away children of immigrants as they did not have the language support services to help them.
The Republic is joint last out of 29 OECD countries in terms of spending on each second-level student relative to the country's economic wealth per capita. Overall, the proportion of GDP invested in education has fallen from 5.2 per cent in 1995 to 4.6 per cent in 2005.
The Minister will tell delegates the €9.3 billion annual education budget is at record levels. She will also point to progress in school buildings, special needs provision and resources for children of immigrants.
INTO members are furious with what it sees as a series of broken promises by the Government on reducing class sizes.
In 2002, the programme for government promised class sizes of fewer than 20 for all children under nine years, but this was never implemented.
Last year's programme for government promised to cut class sizes progressively over the lifetime of this Government, after some 18,000 people attended public meetings organised by the INTO on the issue in the run-up to the election.
Last month, however, schools lost teachers after the Department of Education formally abandoned plans to reduce class size.