THE head of the largest Catholic post primary parents' grouping has said the Education Bill is part of a "hidden agenda" by the Minister for Education to "phase out" voluntary schools.
The president of the Catholic Schools Parents Association, Mr John Whyte, said aspects of the Bill were "repugnant to voluntary education, and especially to voluntary Catholic education".
Mr Whyte said 63 per cent of the State's second level students attended Catholic and Protestant voluntary, schools. "The parents have the right to make that choice and neither this Minister nor any future Minister can deprive them of that right.
Up to now, the number of voluntary schools had been reduced by "starvation", he said. School amalgamations had led to 100 per cent State funded community schools and colleges, since Catholic parents could not afford the 10 per cent they would have to put up to obtain a new voluntary secondary school.
If the Education Bill was implemented, the new education boards would build schools and then lease them to educational interests. "But who can afford to lease a new school? Only the State can."
Mr Whyte also noted that the Education White Paper had specifically referred to the function of school trustees as ensuring "the continuity of the ethos of the school" including "a distinctive religious ethos". He asked: "Where is that mentioned in the Education Bill? It's not."
He said now the religious orders could not make the same contribution to secondary schools, "the Minister wants not only to replace them but to replace everything they stood for".
Mr Whyte said the proposed boards were "a political invention to provide extra expenses for local politicians who have no knowledge of or interest in education".
He did not think the 10 new boards plus the 22 VECs being retained could be funded out of the present education budget. He asked whether the failure to increase the capitation grant this, year in line with inflation would allow the Minister "to set up a nest egg for the future education boards".
Mr Whyte said his association would "not accept the education boards in any shape or form".