No school patronage turf war, says body

THERE is no reason why school trusts cannot continue to transfer buildings to other school patrons, the head of the body overseeing Ireland’s multi-denominational schools has said.

Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together, which has almost 60 multi-denominational primary schools under its umbrella, was responding to questions from Professor John Coolahan, chairman of the advisory group to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector.

The chairman related the difficulties highlighted at the forum’s opening day by trustees and patrons of Catholic primary schools about trust law possibly preventing the hand-over, sale or lease of their properties to new patrons.

“Patron bodies indicated their hands are tied, even if they wish to divest or lease buildings, due to the legal context with charitable trusts and in one sense there [appears to be] a strait jacket and they can do very little.”

But Mr Rowe added there is a mistaken public perception of a turf war taking place between patrons about the need to address the changing educational needs of communities.

“The legal foundations of trusts are pretty diverse and quite complex but I can think of a number of cases where very strongly defined trusts have made their property available to Educate Together schools,” he said.

“I would hope the aims or objectives of all [school] trusts would be to meet the educational needs of all children. Where a trust body has used that view it has been relatively straightforward. For leasing arrangements, I don’t see any reason why that can’t be done in other cases,” he said.

Educate Together schools have an average of more than 12 different religious belief systems among the families represented in all their schools, with any faith formation taking place for different groups outside school hours.

Mr Rowe suggested a national body could handle consultations on patronage changes in areas where new schools are unlikely to be built, a procedure like that at third level.

Using data from the state, he said, the parents of all children aged three could be identified and asked to rank their preferred type of school, meaning local demands could be constantly updated. The proposal, described as a “CAO-type” system by advisory group member Dr Caroline Hussey, would be similar to a suggestion on Wednesday from the National Parents’ Council-Primary, for common enrolment policies for schools in the same area to help alleviate social stratification.

Emer Nowlan, Educate Together’s head of education, said its research shows thousands of parents want the kind of school it provides, with a clear ethical education curriculum during the school day and an option of faith formation after school.

But she said there has been slow progress in introducing more content about their structures into initial training programmes for primary teachers. Ms Nowlan said four of the five main colleges of education, all of which are denominational in their ownership, offer a short course to trainee primary teachers on Educate Together’s Learning Together religious curriculum but only 56 of last year’s 4,000 graduates had taken it up.

The advisory group will hear today from the Department of Education and groups representing special schools and primary principals. Education Minister Ruairi Quinn wants the forum to recommend ways communities could seek to change patronage of local schools, how new patrons would be chosen and transfers be made smoothly.