School patronage

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Because it's surprising; it's not what we'd expect, and the news report explains why. "Enrolment in non-Catholic schools continues to increase" is not surprising. Nor is 'enrolment in schools continues to increase".

Is it surprising though? If for most people a Catholic ethos school is the only viable option, the dept of education are throttling intake of new students to ET schools such that they can't meet demand, and the population is increasing, it seems anything but surprising. A number of parents I know who've gone through this recently put their child's name down in all the local schools and end up going with the least worst option offered, which is nine times out of ten going to be a Catholic ethos school. They would dearly love a secular school but that option simply isn't available. Yes this is anecdotal, but given that divestment is stalled and demand is increasing, Catholic ethos places are the only ones available and hence will be taken up.

The implication from the headline seems to be that parents are preferring Catholic ethos schools, but to substantiate would require a study showing higher demand for these schools than the alternatives. I don't believe this is the case.

Nick Park

Peregrinus wrote: »

Because it's surprising; it's not what we'd expect, and the news report explains why. "Enrolment in non-Catholic schools continues to increase" is not surprising. Nor is 'enrolment in schools continues to increase".

I have to agree with smacl on this.

The numbers of children going to school is increasing. We have a system where parents can be forced, through lack of alternatives, to send their children to a Catholic school. The State is artificially limiting the number of students ET schools can receive. It would be surprising, if not amazing, if enrolment in Catholic schools did not increase.

evolving_doors

Peregrinus wrote: »

Because it's surprising; it's not what we'd expect, and the news report explains why. "Enrolment in non-Catholic schools continues to increase" is not surprising. Nor is 'enrolment in schools continues to increase".

Then why is it news? What's new?
Why focus on "CATHOLIC SCHOOLS" when it's "All Schools".

Anyhow in the interest of balance
the Independant have tried again..

new-schools-enjoy-bounce-in-enrolments-

That's like saying the population of newly built housing estates is rising!

Tl;dr

The population is rising.

Although... you'll be surprised to find out the number of sandwiches consumed is set to rise in "NEW SCHOOLS".:pac:

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

The implication from the headline seems to be that parents are preferring Catholic ethos schools, but to substantiate would require a study showing higher demand for these schools than the alternatives. I don't believe this is the case.

I don't think that is the implication from the headline. The headline just states the fact that enrolments in Catholic schools continue to increase, without implying any reason. The story under it moves immediately into suggesting that the reason for it the Dept of Ed decision to cap growth in non-Catholic schools, and points to the contrast between that decision and the Dept's professed aim of reducing reliance on Catholic schools. And the overall thrust of the story is that while the non-Catholic sector is growing strongly - 9% in one year - it could grow more strongly, if let.

At no point do either the headline or the story suggest or imply that growth in Catholic schools is driven by parent demand. The possibility isn't mentioned or averted to at all.

(I note that you don't think the growth is demand-led. For what it's worth, I wouldn't dismiss this possiblity. The consultation on alternative school patronage a few years back did in fact suggest that Catholic patronage remains extremely popular - it was the most favoured patronage model in (from memory) 44 out of the 45 school districts in which the consultation was conducted. And, from newspaper reports, it does seem to be the case that part of the reason why there has been limited success in transferring schools from Catholic to non-Catholic patronage has been parental resistance. So if we are seriously asking ourselves why the growth in places in Catholic schools continues, we should at least consider the extent to which it may be attributable to parental preferences. If there's an agenda at work in this story - and, as I have already said, I don't think there is - then I'd suggest the best evidence of an agenda is the failure to mention this possibility.)

evolving_doors

Peregrinus wrote: »

I don't think that is the implication from the headline. The headline just states the fact that enrolments in Catholic schools continue to increase, without implying any reason. The story under it moves immediately into suggesting that the reason for it the Dept of Ed decision to cap growth in non-Catholic schools, and points to the contrast between that decision and the Dept's professed aim of reducing reliance on Catholic schools. And the overall thrust of the story is that while the non-Catholic sector is growing strongly - 9% in one year - it could grow more strongly, if let.

At no point do either the headline or the story suggest or imply that growth in Catholic schools is driven by parent demand. The possibility isn't mentioned or averted to at all.

(I note that you don't think the growth is demand-led. For what it's worth, I wouldn't dismiss this possiblity. The consultation on alternative school patronage a few years back did in fact suggest that Catholic patronage remains extremely popular - it was the most favoured patronage model in (from memory) 44 out of the 45 school districts in which the consultation was conducted. And, from newspaper reports, it does seem to be the case that part of the reason why there has been limited success in transferring schools from Catholic to non-Catholic patronage has been parental resistance. So if we are seriously asking ourselves why the growth in places in Catholic schools continues, we should at least consider the extent to which it may be attributable to parental preferences. If there's an agenda at work in this story - and, as I have already said, I don't think there is - then I'd suggest the best evidence of an agenda is the failure to mention this possibility.)

That's the thing, we are not seriously asking ourselves why the growth in places in Catholic schools continues.
The population is just going up.

It's like saying ' Demand for houses in BLANCHARDSTOWN is increasing'.
Is it about house buyers having a preference for Blanchardstown, even though there's a demand all around Dublin. Is there something newsworthy about BLANCHARDSTOWN?

And then the following day publishing ' Demand for houses in CLONSILLA also high'.
So now we have a dichotomy of Clonsilla vs. Blanchardstown like there's a battle going on.

The real demonstration of choice and parental preference will be evident when the population drops and school places become available in all schools.

Peregrinus

But there is a battle going on, as the article makes clear. The government's policy is to reduce reliance on Catholic schools, yet new places are being created in Catholic schools. "Enrolment in schools increases" isn't suprising, and is not the appropriate headline for the story as written, which is about why enrolment in Catholic schools is still increasing, despite the declared objective of reducing the role played by Catholic schools.

"New houses built in Blanchardstown" would be a fair enough headline for a story pointing out that new houses were being built in Blanchardstown, despite a previous regional planning decision that Blanchardtown should not grow further, and that new development should be sited in Clonsilla.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

But there is a battle going on, as the article makes clear. The government's policy is to reduce reliance on Catholic schools, yet new places are being created in Catholic schools...

Really? If there is a battle going on, then the govt. is on the same side as the denominational schools....

The Department of Education has instructed multi-denominational schools in Trim, Tramore, Tuam, Castlebar and New Ross to limit their enrolment next September to just 13 pupils, which is the equivalent of half a class.
All five Educate Together schools say demand for multi-denominational education in their areas is far greater. They believe they should be allowed to grow to meet that demand.
The Department of Education cited financial reasons for its decision. Minister Richard Bruton told the D last week that the state was "not in a financial position to build additional schools just because people do not want the schools that are already in place"

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Really? If there is a battle going on, then the govt. is on the same side as the denominational schools....

The government seems to be on both sides, is the point the article is making. Their policy of not funding new places in non-denominational schools is undercutting their policy of reducing the dominance of the Catholic schools.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

The government seems to be on both sides, is the point the article is making. Their policy of not funding new places in non-denominational schools is undercutting their policy of reducing the dominance of the Catholic schools.

Alternatively, you might say the government is saying one thing and doing the exact opposite which is par for the course. In terms of public attitude for different types of school, I think the statistic we'd want to measure is relative rates of over-subscription for the different types of school. While I'm not aware of actual figures, there seems to be a very large number of people failing to get into ET schools who specifically don't want Catholic ethos, but I'm not aware of significant numbers who'd prefer Catholic ethos being forced into ET or ETB. Most of those failing to get their preferred non-Catholic option end up in Catholic schools, ironically boosting their enrolment figures. The dept of education seems complicit in maintaining this status quo.

recedite

An honest broker can't be on both sides. They can only be neutral.

Its not a neutral act to hobble ET schools by telling them to limit their intake to half a class, just so that the church-run school down the road can continue to run with full classes.

We need to introduce a bit of free market thinking here. The less popular school will gradually wither away from lack of pupils. At that point, the buildings and facilities should be commandeered for the newer type of school; the type that people want.
What's the point of having buzzwords like "divestment" if there is no follow-through in real life?

expectationlost

recedite wrote: »

An honest broker can't be on both sides. They can only be neutral.

Its not a neutral act to hobble ET schools by telling them to limit their intake to half a class, just so that the church-run school down the road can continue to run with full classes.

We need to introduce a bit of free market thinking here. The less popular school will gradually wither away from lack of pupils.

we can't wait for that to happen, its not a free market situation, the government are supposed to provide for mass education.

recedite

expectationlost wrote: »

we can't wait for that to happen, its not a free market situation, the government are supposed to provide for mass education.

That would be even better.
But at the very least, they should not be obstructing it.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

Alternatively, you might say the government is saying one thing and doing the exact opposite which is par for the course. In terms of public attitude for different types of school, I think the statistic we'd want to measure is relative rates of over-subscription for the different types of school. While I'm not aware of actual figures, there seems to be a very large number of people failing to get into ET schools who specifically don't want Catholic ethos, but I'm not aware of significant numbers who'd prefer Catholic ethos being forced into ET or ETB. Most of those failing to get their preferred non-Catholic option end up in Catholic schools, ironically boosting their enrolment figures. The dept of education seems complicit in maintaining this status quo.

Basically, it comes down to money. There's a massive over-supply of Catholic places, relative to demand, and a massive undersupply of non-denominational places. The government wants to rebalance this, but they don't want it enough to actually be prepared to spend any money on it, which is what they'd have to do if the growth in non-denominational schools were not capped.

evolving_doors

Peregrinus wrote: »

Basically, it comes down to money. There's a massive over-supply of Catholic places, relative to demand, and a massive undersupply of non-denominational places. The government wants to rebalance this, but they don't want it enough to actually be prepared to spend any money on it, which is what they'd have to do if the growth in non-denominational schools were not capped.

Where's the massive oversupply of Catholic places?

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

.. but they don't want it enough to actually be prepared to spend any money on it, which is what they'd have to do if the growth in non-denominational schools were not capped.

...or the govt. would have to make the hard choices. Like some form of compulsory divestment or "change of patronage" for the schools that parents don't want to send their kids to.
And this is where we find Minister Bruton so sadly lacking.

waterfaerie

evolving_doors wrote: »

Where's the massive oversupply of Catholic places?

Taken up by non-catholics because they have no other choice?

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Basically, it comes down to money. There's a massive over-supply of Catholic places, relative to demand, and a massive undersupply of non-denominational places. The government wants to rebalance this, but they don't want it enough to actually be prepared to spend any money on it, which is what they'd have to do if the growth in non-denominational schools were not capped.

I'd tend to agree with that. Having gone to what became the countries first educate together school myself and watched both my kids go through them, it is apparent that these schools exist because of the work put in by those that want them despite the department of education. While money is no doubt part of the problem, I suspect there is more at play here as a largely reactive civil service does not appreciate being shown up be a very proactive community.

robindch

Protesters in Greece - including some splendidly hairy priests - object to new religious textbooks for school in which other religions are treated less negatively than before:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/greek-protesters-attack-new-religious-instruction-textbooks/2018/03/04/4d97a0f6-2006-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html

recedite

The new textbooks,especially for the upper classes, devote more space to other Christian denominations and other religions

I was thinking WTF, do they have different religious instruction for posh people?
But they must mean the senior/older classes :pac:
Mind you, when you consider the "private school" situation in Ireland, dominated by religious ethos schools, its not a totally alien concept.

lazygal

recedite wrote: »

I was thinking WTF, do they have different religious instruction for posh people?
But they must mean the senior/older classes :pac:
Mind you, when you consider the "private school" situation in Ireland, dominated by religious ethos schools, its not a totally alien concept.

All schools in Ireland are private. That's the problem with the patronage system.

recedite

Ah yes, but some are more private than others.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

...or the govt. would have to make the hard choices. Like some form of compulsory divestment or "change of patronage" for the schools that parents don't want to send their kids to.

This is a hard choice, because it's likely to be deeply unpopular with the parent community at the school that is divested. Basically, divesting an existing school, against the wishes of the parents, is pretty certain to piss off a lot more people than it gratifies. And they are people who already have a signficant common bond - they are parents of children at the same school - so they are going to find organising to resist or protest against the divestment fairly easy.

IMO, the realist rock on which a lot of divestment aspirations founder is that most of the time, in most schools, the existing patronage is mostly popular. And until we come up with a model of divestment that recognises that and finds some way of accommodating it, divestment plans are going to be about as successful as the Tories' brexit strategy.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

This is a hard choice, because it's likely to be deeply unpopular with the parent community at the school that is divested. Basically, divesting an existing school, against the wishes of the parents, is pretty certain to piss off a lot more people than it gratifies. And they are people who already have a signficant common bond - they are parents of children at the same school - so they are going to find organising to resist or protest against the divestment fairly easy.

IMO, the realist rock on which a lot of divestment aspirations founder is that most of the time, in most schools, the existing patronage is mostly popular. And until we come up with a model of divestment that recognises that and finds some way of accommodating it, divestment plans are going to be about as successful as the Tories' brexit strategy.

I think you're largely right with the above analysis when it comes to sparsely populated areas with few schools serving large catchment areas. Parish pump politics are such that the local TD is on a hiding to nothing in this scenario as long as a majority are in favour of maintaining the status quo. Once you move into more densely populated areas, with multiple similar schools in a smaller area, the numbers game changes. In this case you have a sizeable body of parents looking for a secular school competing against a proportion of parents of just one of the Catholic schools. You then have the likelihood of more people in favour of the changeover. You also have the probability that along with collapsing mass attendance numbers and reduced religiosity that many people don't care much one way or another, they simply want a good school that is easily accessible.

lazygal

Choice can make people more discerning too. There's a school I wouldn't go near in our area. Because of its poor reputation (which is deserved going on parents who've removed children from it) it will naturally dwindle as people choose better ones, meaning a building might be available in years to come. Whereas when there's only one school you have to keep using it or travel a long distance for an alternative.
My children's ET school is in a building which housed a very large catholic school until the mid 1980s. The school closed and now the building offers a choice of two schools to parents and children.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I think you're largely right with the above analysis when it comes to sparsely populated areas with few schools serving large catchment areas. Parish pump politics are such that the local TD is on a hiding to nothing in this scenario as long as a majority are in favour of maintaining the status quo. Once you move into more densely populated areas, with multiple similar schools in a smaller area, the numbers game changes. In this case you have a sizeable body of parents looking for a secular school competing against a proportion of parents of just one of the Catholic schools. You then have the likelihood of more people in favour of the changeover.

I take your point. But the fact remains that in each of the Catholic schools there's probably a majority of parents who want that school to remain a Catholic school, and they are connected to one another, are easily organised and are defending a vested interest. While the parents who want a non-Catholic school are more dispersed, less organised and, while they want a non-Catholic school, they don't particularly want this school as a non-Catholic school. So I still think the politician who tries to de-Catholicise a school over the wishes of the parents is walking into a sh!tstorm.

Which is not to say that it shouldn't be done. But it won't be done as long as we are in denial about the challenge presented, and as long as we don't come up with some strategy for dealing with the wishes/expectations of the existing parent body.

smacl wrote: »

You also have the probability that along with collapsing mass attendance numbers and reduced religiosity that many people don't care much one way or another, they simply want a good school that is easily accessible.

There's nothing probable about that. Experience in other countries shows that low mass attendance rates and low religiosity can be accompanied by high demand for religious/denominational schools for generations. Assuming that lower rates of religious practice/identification automatically turns into majority demand for non-denominational schools is just wishful thinking, and this is not a problem that is going to be solved by wishful thinking. If you want to know what school patronage models parents want, stop looking at their mass attendance or at how they complete the census form, and start researching what school patronage models they want.

lazygal wrote: »

Choice can make people more discerning too. There's a school I wouldn't go near in our area. Because of its poor reputation (which is deserved going on parents who've removed children from it) it will naturally dwindle as people choose better ones, meaning a building might be available in years to come . . .

Think like that do present opportunities which should be seized when they arise. But this is always going to be marginal; I don't think we can wait for existing schools to fail in order to liberate resources tomeet demand for non-religious school patronage. (And, yes, I know you're not suggesting that we should wait.) We do need to divest a proportion of the existing religiously-patronized schools, but we need to recognise the constituencies that will object to that, and we need to come up with strategies that recognise and accommodate their position in some way.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

So I still think the politician who tries to de-Catholicise a school over the wishes of the parents is walking into a sh!tstorm.

We are a long way from that.
We're still at the point where Dept. of Education is capping the numbers trying to enrol in ET schools, in order to protect the enrolment of longer established denominational schools. Because somehow they think this will save money.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

We are a long way from that.
We're still at the point where Dept. of Education is capping the numbers trying to enrol in ET schools, in order to protect the enrolment of longer established denominational schools. Because somehow they think this will save money.

As far as I can see, they have capped growth in ET schools at the highest level of growth which won't entitle the school to an extra teacher. So, yes, I think this is about saving money.

And, while I'm not defending the cap, if they simply allow existing ET schools to grow and Catholic schools to shrink, money aside, this still results in 95% of schools remaining under Catholic patronage, and it does nothing for people who aren't within striking distance of an ET school, which is a lot of people.

So, yeah, we may be a long way from divestment of currently-Catholic schools, but that does look like the only way to solve this problem properly. We need to come up with a functional strategy for divestment, which doesn't cost an enormous amount of money, and which accommodates in some meaningful way the views and wishes of the parents of pupils in divested schools who actively favour Catholic patronage.

Michael Nugent

Peregrinus wrote: »

IMO, the realist rock on which a lot of divestment aspirations founder is that most of the time, in most schools, the existing patronage is mostly popular.

From our experience in Atheist Ireland of talking with dissatisfied parents with children in existing schools, I don't think the issue is that the existing patronage is popular.

I think it is more that parents do not want to disrupt the education of their children. That is also a large part of the reason why parents are reluctant to take legal cases to vindicate their and their children's human rights in schools.

This is the real dilemma for secular parents: in an overall sense they want a secular school system and believe that it is better for society, but at the moment their priority (understandably) is getting their own child through the system as it exists with the least amount of disruption.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

So, yeah, we may be a long way from divestment of currently-Catholic schools, but that does look like the only way to solve this problem properly. We need to come up with a functional strategy for divestment, which doesn't cost an enormous amount of money, and which accommodates in some meaningful way the views and wishes of the parents of pupils in divested schools who actively favour Catholic patronage.

I agree and I think the problem is when we talk about divestment, we're actually talking about what we want the school not to be without saying what we want it to be. ET is one model, and while I'm a huge fan, it is possibly too much of a leap for some people to move from a Catholic ethos to an ET one. A more sensible approach would be to look at the criteria required to make the divested school acceptable to all concerned and work to achieving those criteria in incremental steps.

At the same time, capping ET intake numbers once the schools have been set up is clearly ludicrous and stinks of someone intentionally putting the boot in. If it was related to teacher numbers and cost, why on earth build schools with such limited class sizes in the first instance. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Peregrinus

Michael Nugent wrote: »

From our experience in Atheist Ireland of talking with dissatisfied parents with children in existing schools, I don't think the issue is that the existing patronage is popular.

No offence, but if you're only talking to the dissatisfied parents, you would be getting a fairly one-sided picture.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

I think it is more that parents do not want to disrupt the education of their children. That is also a large part of the reason why parents are reluctant to take legal cases to vindicate their and their children's human rights in schools.

Mmm. Why should a change in patronage disrupt the education of their children? The only significant change will be to the religious character of the school and the way religious instruction is treated, surely? If they find that change "disruptive" then, yes, they clearly do favour Catholic patronage and the characteristics that come with it.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

This is the real dilemma for secular parents: in an overall sense they want a secular school system and believe that it is better for society, but at the moment their priority (understandably) is getting their own child through the system as it exists with the least amount of disruption.

I accept that. But the issue we're facing here is not what "secular parents" want; it's what the parents of the students in the school being divested want. And I think a divestment strategy which will work has to start by facing up to the fact that this is probably not the same thing.