Draft proposals due on primary level handovers

EXPERTS appointed to oversee Education Minister Ruairi Quinn’s Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector are finalising draft policy proposals.

Much of their deliberations are about ways to identify communities where there may be enough demand for wider choice of primary school types for the local Catholic bishop to divest his patronage and make a school available to an alternative patron.

This key area will form part of the draft suggestions to be presented on November 17 by the group, chaired by former professor of education at NUI Maynooth, John Coolahan.

More complicated issues to have been raised by education stakeholders in June, included questions around how to choose which local Catholic school might be handed over, how to select an alternative patron, how existing schools in rural areas can best accommodate children of other or no faiths, and legal questions around the transfer of property held in trust.

The Department of Education last year identified 43 urban areas where there is need for greater choice and where the bishops might hand over control of some of their schools.

Last month, the Catholic Schools Partnership representing bishops and religious orders said the 2,800 Catholic primary school communities should reflect on their identities to prepare the way for a change in patronage where that would be appropriate. It said arrangements should be agreed on the timing of religious education class to cater for parents who do not wish their child to receive religious formation, but there was no support for moving the preparation for sacraments entirely outside of school hours.