Legal changes to primary school patrons face delay

LEGAL changes to allow vocational education committees become patrons of primary schools face delay as the control of schools comes under close scrutiny.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said he wants to see first what emerges from public consultations in the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism, launched this week, before deciding whether to proceed with the relevant sections of the Education (Amendment) Bill 2010, published last September.

It was intended to enable VECs to act as patrons of community national schools, which provide multi-denominational education for children of all faiths and none.

Five community national schools have been opened by Dublin, Kildare and Meath VECs in the last few years but are under the minister’s interim patronage until the law is changed.

Asked if he would be progressing the legislation in the Dáil, Mr Quinn said he would await the outcomes of the forum.

“I think it would be disrespectful to set up a forum to review the whole question of plurality and patronage and then to pre-empt it by making unilateral decisions on my own. I don’t think that’s the way to set example,” he said.

VECs are keen to widen their scope into primary education but Educate Together is also anxious to expand its multi-denominational schools to other areas where there is parental demand.

The forum’s advisory group, chaired by former education professor John Coolahan, has asked interested parties to make their views known by early June.

Some stakeholders will have a chance to elaborate on them in three days of public hearings later that month.

The minister said that, while he doesn’t have the resources to provide four schools at every crossroads, he wants a patronage system that better reflects the demographics of society.

About 95% of the 3,200 primary schools are controlled by Christian churches and 90% are under Catholic patronage.

The Catholic Schools Partnership, set up by the Catholic bishops and religious orders, is consulting on the divestment of primary schools.

But it has said the minister’s suggestion that half of schools would transfer suggests forced rather than voluntary change.