Identifying towns latest stage in change process

THE identification of towns where control of schools could be exchanged is the latest stage of a process that began in 2007 when bishops acknowledged the Catholic Church would not be the sole or dominant providers of primary education into the future.

Of 3,165 primary schools (excluding special schools), 2,888 or 91%, have a Catholic ethos, with 196 (6.2%) more being under the patronage of Church of Ireland or other Protestant denominations. With one school each of Jewish and Quaker ethos and two Muslim primary schools, 69 of the remaining 77 are multi-denominational and eight are inter-denominational (catering for children of two denominations).

The multi-denominational system is the fastest-growing model of primary education, catering for children of all faiths or none, and 58 of the 69 such schools are under the patronage of the Educate Together group, which is hoping to expand into second-level provision. Educate Together welcomed yesterday’s report from the Department of Education and said it would be happy to hold constructive dialogue with the department and the Catholic Church to facilitate patronage transfer where local parents are in favour of it.