Time to end the church’s hold on education

Don’t let anyone fool you. Control of education is still right up there at the top of the agenda for the Catholic Church in Ireland. It is how the bishops intend to continue to wield the entirely disproportionate influence that has been their prerogative here, since the foundation of the State.

An astonishing 98% of primary schools are currently under the patronage of the Catholic Church. No wonder we are facing into a crisis in education, with the first signs of racial discrimination emerging in the primary school system. And if somebody doesn’t act fast, it will get worse before it gets better.
This issue was highlighted at the start of the new school term when it emerged that there was a shortage of places for children wishing to enrol in schools in Blanchardstown and Balbriggan. As it turned out, a significant majority of those who were refused places in the local Catholic schools were black.
Why has this been allowed to happen? On what basis were these children refused places in the exiting local schools? It hardly needs saying that the duty of the State is to ensure that people of all religions and none will have access to education, and on equal terms ­– but where the new Irish are concerned, that is not happening.
To be fair to all parties, it has to be acknowledged that there has been a huge explosion in the population in certain parts of Dublin, and the commuter belt around it. In the Fingal area, in which both Blanchardstown and Balbriggan are located, there has been an increase of 50% in the population, over a ten-year period.
While the planners have allowed houses to be built, the necessary attention was not paid to the need for additional schools – and the current shortage of places is the inevitable result of that lack of foresight.
But there is another issue here, which relates to the Equal Status Act, 2000. This is a thoroughly flawed piece of legislation, which – under the guise of establishing a framework for equality – allows schools to refuse applications from children where it is deemed to be necessary to “maintain the ethos of the school”. It is a get-out clause that leaves it open to schools to exercise a form of apartheid – which is precisely what they are now doing.
In a statement issued last week, the Chairman of the Bishops’ Education Commission, Bishop Leo O’Reilly, disputed this interpretation.
“The assumption is that the reason for preferring Catholic students to those of other faiths, or none, is in order to maintain the ethos of the school,” he said last week. “This might be the case if those of other faiths seeking admission were the majority — but that is hardly ever the case. In fact, the reason for preferring Catholic students in most situations is that the Church founds schools and invests in schools in order to provide a Catholic education for its members.
“Race or ethnic origin have nothing to do with the criteria for admission into Catholic schools and suggestions from some quarters — not, I stress, from the Equality Authority — of racially-motivated admission policies in Catholic schools are either misinformed or malicious.
“To say that the Catholic Church, or any other Church or faith group, is guilty of discrimination because it gives preference to members of their own Church or faith is akin to blaming the GAA for giving preference to the supporters of Cork and Kerry when distributing the tickets for the All-Ireland final.”
It says it all that the Bishop could reduce an issue about what is a fundamental human right – the right to an education – to a comparison with getting tickets for the All-Ireland. In a way, this is doubly revealing: for him, it is all about keeping things in the tribe.
The truth, of course, is that the Church’s position in this regard is utterly disingenuous. They control 98% of the existing primary schools. In effect what they are saying is that people who are not members, or who refuse to join the tribe, can piss off and live on the balance of 2% of the education system.
Bishop O’Reilly can dance on the head of as many pins as he likes, in trying to say that it has nothing to do with race or ethnic origin – but religion is virtually synonymous with ethnic origin for many of the immigrants who have arrived in Ireland over the past ten years. Besides, if Church policy leads to the ghettoisation of black kids, or non-white kids – as has happened in Scoil Choilm, the emergency school opened in Diswellstown in Dublin 15, for one – then the effect is to promote segregation. And, as a corollary, to promote racism.
“The real issue here,” the bishop added, “is the provision of alternative models of patronage to meet the needs of a rapidly changing pluralist society. Catholic schools will continue to welcome children of other faiths, and none, where they have the resources to do so.
“The provision of schools under different patronage will ensure parents have the choices guaranteed to them in the Constitution, and that Catholic schools will have space and resources to continue to be inclusive of other faiths in their enrolment.”
In other words: what we have we hold. But this is disingenuous too. How practical is it to provide alternative, non-religious (or minority religious) schools within an easily reachable distance for people who are spread all over Dublin – and indeed Ireland? It is not practical at all, and the Bishop knows it.
The Church’s Pontius Pilate stance simply doesn’t wash. The bottom line is that kids should be admitted to the dominant schools in the State entirely free of any consideration of their religious affiliations.
Of course, the real blame lies with the State – for allowing its citizens to be stuck with schools that are almost entirely controlled and managed by religious institutions. It is therefore up to the State to provide a solution – the most obvious being, in the short term, to insist that it is not acceptable for any primary school to refuse an applicant living within a particular catchment area, or to discriminate by accepting a later rather than an earlier application on grounds of religion. And if it is necessary to copperfasten this position in legislation, then that too will have to be done.
In the longer term, the State has to be prepared to take on the vested religious interests. It has to move to a position where – for a start – primary education is liberated from the controlling hand of all religions. The peculiar connivance between the Roman Catholic Church and the State in relation to education is one of the most ignominious aspects of the development of Ireland as an independent republic. In 2007, it is time to bring what is an entirely anomalous state of affairs to an end by wresting control of the schools from any and all religions.
If there is undue resistance from the Church, then perhaps it should be pointed out to them that they have enjoyed an extremely privileged position in relation to tax – and that a change to this is being considered. In the end, even the Bishops know which side their bread is buttered on.