School patronage

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

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.

Yes. It occurs to me (and I confess that this is a fairly half-baked idea as yet) that one strategy that could be explored is that of a phased transition, so that for pupils currently in the school, what are perceived by parents to be the advantages of denominational patronage, or at least some of them, are retained for the rest of the time their children will be at the school.

smacl wrote: »

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.

Capping the ET intake numbers while doing nothing else to provide non-religious places for those who want them is clearly unjust. And that seems to be the situation we have right now.

But if growth in existing ET schools is uncapped, this actually reduces the pressure for divestment of other schools. And if in the long term you think that divestment of other schools is the way to go, you might think that framing and implementing a feasible divestment strategy is a more important objective than uncapping the existing ET schools. And that, to the extent that there is any tension between the two goals, you should favour divestment.

(And, on a nitpick, class size isn't limited by the physical size of the classroom, but by educational/financial/conditions of employment limitations on the number of students to be put into a class under the supervision of a single teacher. The enrolment at ET schools could be increased if the maximum permitted class size was increased, but you'd expect strong resistance from the teaching unions and from parents and, in time, lower educational outcomes.)

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

But if growth in existing ET schools is uncapped, this actually reduces the pressure for divestment of other schools. And if in the long term you think that divestment of other schools is the way to go, you might think that framing and implementing a feasible divestment strategy is a more important objective than uncapping the existing ET schools. And that, to the extent that there is any tension between the two goals, you should favour divestment.

(And, on a nitpick, class size isn't limited by the physical size of the classroom, but by educational/financial/conditions of employment limitations on the number of students to be put into a class under the supervision of a single teacher. The enrolment at ET schools could be increased if the maximum permitted class size was increased, but you'd expect strong resistance from the teaching unions and from parents and, in time, lower educational outcomes.)

I don't agree. If you accept that strangling a school by halving the number of new students it can accept is in any way reasonable, one incremental approach to divestment would be to cap new student numbers on existing Catholic schools and shift those resources into the growth of secular schools such as ET. If it is reasonable to apply caps to one patron but not another, what we're seeing here is yet more discrimination in favour of Catholic ethos schools. Personally, I'm not in favour of strangling any schools further at a time when many are struggling to stay afloat, but if it is going to be done it should be done fairly. ET have unreasonably got the crappy end of the stick here once again.

Remember, the goal here is to balance the ratio of secular to religious ethos places in our school system to meet parental demand. Divestment is a mechanism by which we envisage this can take place, it is not a goal in and of itself.

Peregrinus

As far as I know, the cap on school expansion applies to all schools, if there are other schools in the district with unfilled places. Formally, there is no difference of treatment as between Catholic and other schools. In practice, of course, because of the oversupply of Catholic-patronised schools, the schools with unfilled places are all or nearly all Catholic schools, while the schools with excess demand are all or nearly all other schools.

I take your point about the ultimate goal here being rebalancing of places to meet demand, and anything which tends towards this end is better than inaction. But of course allowing existing ET schools to grow can only tend towards this end in areas that have at least one ET school, so there's a limit to the amount of rebalancing that can be achieved by this measure. Plus, it's also a measure which provides no benefit at all to parents who want non-Catholic places, but whose children are already in school.

For that reason divestment - if it can be made to happen - looks like the better strategy, and the one that people should push for.

But that, I freely concede, is a very abstract and theoretical analysis. The fact is that divestment isn't happening and, pushing or no pushing, it may not happen on any great scale any time soon. Uncapping school growth may not look like the optimal solution, but it may be the more attainable one, at least in the short to medium term.

So, we ask ourselves, what is the barrier to uncapping? And the answer is, money. If an ET school grows by more than X pupils, it gets an extra teacher, who must be paid. This isn't normally matched by the loss of a teacher in another school, for two reasons. First, it's much more difficult to cut a school's staff allocation than to increase it. Secondly, it'll often be the case that the extra 30 (say) students enrolling in the ET school aren't matched by 30 fewer students enrolling at a Catholic school, but by, e.g., 10 fewer students at each of 3 Catholic schools. So even if you did have a strict rule that 30 extra students:1 extra teacher and 30 fewer students:1 less teacher, you'd still end up with more teachers overall.

smacl

The problem there is that teaching in the public sector, like most jobs in the public sector, is protected employment. If we have a school with a given number of teachers that are involved in teaching new students, and we take on fewer new students, we clearly need fewer teachers in that school. Because of the nature of our public service we can't make them redundant, so the only apparent option is to redeploy them to other schools where they are needed.

Realistically, I don't see much of this happening until such time as the government of the day receive more extreme pressure to act. They have no real appetite for change, and will drag their heels for as long as it is an option. After all, they too are public servants surrounded by civil servants in protected employment who continue to get paid and pensioned by the public at large regardless of whether they achieve the tasks they are set.

Somewhat off topic, but I think religious education is not the worst of our problems in the Irish education system. Re-watching Conrad Wolfram's talk about teaching maths with my kids the other night really brought home how far off the mark much of our education is. At a secondary level, to my mind, this is where ET is so different from our more conventional schools. While I genuinely applaud the ethos of ET schools, I suspect it is in danger of overshadowing what they are attempting to achieve academically.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

Because of the nature of our public service we can't make them redundant, so the only apparent option is to redeploy them to other schools where they are needed.

Realistically, I don't see much of this happening..

There is a certain flexibility in the system due to the existence of "the panel". This has always been in place due to fluctuating pupil numbers, ie there would need to be a method for the redistribution of teachers anyway, even if all schools were the same patronage. Also experienced teachers may want to move to another locality, and get priority over new entrants there.

So redeployment is not an insurmountable barrier, just an inconvenience for some.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

The problem there is that teaching in the public sector, like most jobs in the public sector, is protected employment. If we have a school with a given number of teachers that are involved in teaching new students, and we take on fewer new students, we clearly need fewer teachers in that school. Because of the nature of our public service we can't make them redundant, so the only apparent option is to redeploy them to other schools where they are needed.

Realistically, I don't see much of this happening until such time as the government of the day receive more extreme pressure to act. They have no real appetite for change, and will drag their heels for as long as it is an option. After all, they too are public servants surrounded by civil servants in protected employment who continue to get paid and pensioned by the public at large regardless of whether they achieve the tasks they are set.

It's not just in the public sector that it's much easier to hire staff than to fire them, smacl. Private sector employers will tell you that this is the case there too. And there are obvious social (and even economic) arguments for why this should be so.

But, regardless of whether it should be so, for our purposes it's enough to note that it is so. If the task here is to develop practical, viable mechanisms for redressing the imbalance in the provision of school places, we have to devise mechanisms which work in the real world, which means we have to deal with the real-world nature of employment relationships.

Hotblack Desiato

It might happen in the future that some god-fearing, RC teachers in declining schools might have to be redeployed into growing ET schools.

I'm sure the DoE (The only government department HQ where the real head office is the big church across the road) will do their best in such a scenario to ensure that good RC teachers are not asked to take up posts in protestant schools, that'd be an indignity too far.

Peregrinus

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

It might happen in the future that some god-fearing, RC teachers in declining schools might have to be redeployed into growing ET schools.

It might. But we should perhaps ask ourselves whether the ET schools should be required to employ whichever teacher the RC school decides to release rather than, you know, advertising a vacancy and interviewing applicants and appointing the candidate that they prefer!

Of course, you have the problem in spades if an RC school is divested and reassigned to ET patronage. Because, as well as some of the parents having chosen the school precisely because they prefer an RC school, some of the staff may have sought employment there for the same reason. And the principal, presumably, will have been appointed at least in part because he or she is seen to be supportive of the RC ethos.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

But, regardless of whether it should be so, for our purposes it's enough to note that it is so. If the task here is to develop practical, viable mechanisms for redressing the imbalance in the provision of school places, we have to devise mechanisms which work in the real world, which means we have to deal with the real-world nature of employment relationships.

I agree, but think the whole ET movement has arisen from our abject failure to make any significant progress on this at government and public sector level. It is worth noting that what became the first ET school was set up forty years ago, so the demand for secular education is hardly new. The DoE if anything seems resistant to making progress here and my take is that the capping of places in ET schools is an illustration of this. That religion has been mandatory in ETB schools is a further illustration of resistance to increased secularism in the school system.

It might happen in the future that some god-fearing, RC teachers in declining schools might have to be redeployed into growing ET schools.

Some of them may jump at the opportunity. A friend of mine recently left a teaching post at a highly regarded Catholic school to take up a place at an ET school as the he'd become deeply disillusioned with the old school. Talking to him about it, he's putting a lot more work in but finding it very rewarding and is much happier as a result. Aside from students, there seems to be significant competition for teaching posts in ET schools such that the principal can pick those who are passionate and motivated. The reverse seems to be the case for many of the larger established schools.

Peregrinus

Oh, sure. There are probably plenty of teachers working in Catholic-patronised schools who, given their druthers, would rather be in ET-patronised schools. But they won't necessarily be the teachers who end up there, if the policy is to "redeploy" teachers from declining Catholic-patronised school to growing ET-patronised schools. Under the latter policy, you risk the ET school ending up with the teachers that the Catholic school is pleased to be rid of.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Oh, sure. There are probably plenty of teachers working in Catholic-patronised schools who, given their druthers, would rather be in ET-patronised schools. But they won't necessarily be the teachers who end up there, if the policy is to "redeploy" teachers from declining Catholic-patronised school to growing ET-patronised schools. Under the latter policy, you risk the ET school ending up with the teachers that the Catholic school is pleased to be rid of.

Is this actually ever the case, or where a post becomes available do the principal and management interview and select from the candidates applying? I know that short of buggering the bursar it is difficult to get rid of a teacher but had thought there was more leeway in hiring.

One eyed Jack

smacl wrote: »

Is this actually ever the case, or where a post becomes available do the principal and management interview and select from the candidates applying? I know that short of buggering the bursar it is difficult to get rid of a teacher but had thought there was more leeway in hiring.

It can happen both ways tbh. I've interviewed teachers for positions who had wanted to transfer from ET schools, same as your friend who went the other way. It's not really that difficult to get rid of a teacher, not something I'd obviously encourage, but I have seen it happen like in any other area of employment where the person is effectively "managed out" as it were. There's definitely more leeway in hiring though, and I've had a few memorable interviews, both for all the right reasons, and unfortunately for them, all the wrong reasons.

FWIW btw this exchange between yourself and Peregrinus is quality stuff!

*goes back to the sidelines*

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

Is this actually ever the case, or where a post becomes available do the principal and management interview and select from the candidates applying? I know that short of buggering the bursar it is difficult to get rid of a teacher but had thought there was more leeway in hiring.

I was responding to Hotblack's suggestion in post #4478 that surplus teachers from declining-enrolment Catholic schools might be "redeployed" to growing-enrolment ET schools, as a way of making the Department less fearful of allowing the ET schools to grow, with consequent inflation of total teacher numbers. My point is that such a redeployment arrangement might allow the ET schools to grow, but at the cost of some diminution in their ability to appoint their own teaching staff.

(Which might be a cost worth bearing. But you'd want to recognise the cost, and think about it.)

I get the sense, smacl, that you're inclined to attribute the virtually zero progress in divestment so far to an entrenched preference for Catholic patronage in the Dept of Ed. I concede that that may be a factor, but I think the picture is much more nuanced than that. As I have already suggested, I think there's probably an entrenched preference for Catholic patronage among a significant section of the parent body in most Catholic-patronised schools; that's at least as big an obstacle. And, within the Department, declining school enrolments are considered problematic for reasons that have nothing to do with the patronage of the school; it's very difficult to shrink or close a school, so declining enrolment in one school matched by growing enrolment in another tends to raise the average cost per student, and in times of budgetary constraint that's inherently problematic.

I think the tension is this: given its druthers, the Department would prefer to rebalance the supply of school places by divesting whole schools. And the Catholic church, in principle, is open to this. They are looking to reduce the amount of their shrinking personnel and resources that they need to devote to school management. But in any particular school the parent body is likely to resist and, SFAIK, has resisted where divestment has actually been proposed.

Parents would probably be happy with allowing new students who want to go to the ET school to get a place there, so that everyone admitted to the Catholic school actually wanted to be there. This doesn't threaten them or their children - provided the school doesn't lose funding, staff, facilities in consequence. Which of course is precisely the scenario that spooks the Department.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

I get the sense, smacl, that you're inclined to attribute the virtually zero progress in divestment so far to an entrenched preference for Catholic patronage in the Dept of Ed.

Not so much that as a preference for the current status quo, resistance to change, and resentment of those successes that happen independently of their input. From where I'm sitting it is reminiscent of the 'nobody ever got fired for buy IBM' mentality prevalent in the 80's and 90's until of course such time as people started getting fired for buying IBM

As I have already suggested, I think there's probably an entrenched preference for Catholic patronage among a significant section of the parent body in most Catholic-patronised schools; that's at least as big an obstacle. And, within the Department, declining school enrolments are considered problematic for reasons that have nothing to do with the patronage of the school; it's very difficult to shrink or close a school, so declining enrolment in one school matched by growing enrolment in another tends to raise the average cost per student, and in times of budgetary constraint that's inherently problematic.

I'll bow to your superior knowledge on that, most of what I hear about the DoE is second hand grumblings (and that's being kind).

I think the tension is this: given its druthers, the Department would prefer to rebalance the supply of school places by divesting whole schools. And the Catholic church, in principle, is open to this. They are looking to reduce the amount of their shrinking personnel and resources that they need to devote to school management. But in any particular school the parent body is likely to resist and, SFAIK, has resisted where divestment has actually been proposed.

Parents would probably be happy with allowing new students who want to go to the ET school to get a place there, so that everyone admitted to the Catholic school actually wanted to be there. This doesn't threaten them or their children - provided the school doesn't lose funding, staff, facilities in consequence. Which of course is precisely the scenario that spooks the Department.

The problem here is that for the reasons you've already stated, divestment at the scale envisaged seems difficult to achieve, impractical, and if we're talking about moving say from Catholic ethos to ET at secondary level, very possibly inappropriate. For example, mid-way into the senior cycle may not be a good time to introduce big changes for the students. Pragmatically, my experience has been that incremental change is far easier to implement that large scale change and meets much less resistance. To change the ethos of a school from Catholic to secular, the obvious starting point is to make religious education optional and similarly any event that involves religious ceremony. Follow that with re-election of the board from members of staff and parents rather than the religious patron and you're a long way down the road to divestment with minimal intrusion on the day to day operation of the school.

Of course all this comes back to what exactly parents want from a school and what is actually best for the children. For example, I'd actually have more of an issue with segregation of the sexes than with religious ethos, and consider it important that egalitarianism is intrinsically stressed as part of education. Others have different preferences and priorities. To my mind there is a need to carry out a detailed study of what exactly people want from education, where religious ethos or lack thereof is really a very small part of this. Currently we seem to be striving to achieve a lowest common denominator and even there, failing.

smacl

Pleased to see the enrolment caps for ET schools have been lifted, source.

recedite

A welcome U-turn, and utterly shameful that the Dept. of Education even tried to pursue such a policy in 21st Century Ireland.

Educate Together is pleased that the Department will no longer restrict the growth of these schools as a matter of policy. Rather it has committed to working with the schools...

recedite

Lord Ross of Rathdown found himself in hot water over the last few days after bragging about his department's grant of €150,000 of taxpayers money to a wealthy protestant private school in his constituency.

Also on 'Today with Sean O'Rourke' this morning Mary Daly, Principal at St Dominic’s College in Ballyfermot in Dublin, explained how their sports hall has 14 leaks in the roof and that the joints under the floor are rotten.
Ms Daly also claimed that it was going to be difficult to encourage young girls to participate in sport when their shower facilities are unavailable and their changing facilities are inadequate.
Mick Duff, Chairman of the Board of Tallaght Community School and also a Labour Councillor, spoke of having applied many times for funding for a small all-weather pitch, and having to pay fees each time he applied.

I actually heard that radio interview, and Lord Ross was explaining that the quid pro quo here is that in return for the public money, the private school would be required to open up the facility to the whole community, citing the YMCA and Taney National School as additional local users of new facility. Without mentioning that Taney is the local COI parish primary school and YMCAHC is a protestant sports and social club already based at the school. Making his whole "public access" arrangement seem somewhat incestuous.

Anyway, just another example of our schools system being dominated by religious patronage, which itself is dependent on political patronage.

recedite

Interesting quote in today's Indo from a protestor at the rally held in Dublin relating to the Belfast rugby player (non-)rape trial.

Also at the rally was Ken McCue (63), from Smithfield in Dublin, who said he would like to see ethics and human rights courses for school children aged around 12 upwards.
He teaches cultural planning, human rights and ethics himself, and believes that children would benefit from ethics courses, in terms of learning about respect.
“It should continue right through their schooling, especially the ones involved in sport,” he said.

Bearing in mind that the ERBE ethics course which was supposed to be introduced to all primary schools a couple of years ago was stymied by the efforts of the RCC. Poor old Richard Bruton seems to have received a particularly severe belt of the crozier, causing him to mothball the proposal indefinitely.

I'm well aware that Belfast is in a different jurisdiction, nevertheless both parts of this island are moving into a post religion age simultaneously and we have a lot in common on both sides of the border. Not least school systems characterised by segregation according to religion (often self imposed self-segregation).

As religious based morality loses its power and influence on people, it really needs to be replaced by something better than porn.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

As religious based morality loses its power and influence on people, it really needs to be replaced by something better than porn.

We currently have SPHE covering the personal side of this and CSPE covering the civic aspect. Not a huge fan of the four letter acronyms but seems ok outside of that. I'll ask my kids if these are better than porn and get back to you

recedite

Yes of course, but from your link

The SPHE programme reflects the unique ethos of each school

I'd prefer to see a more standardised curriculum, whereby religion, ethics, civics etc.. were taken out of the hands of the "patrons" and taught on a more nationalised basis. It would be more credible and less "hit and miss".

smacl

recedite wrote: »

Yes of course, but from your link I'd prefer to see a more standardised curriculum, whereby religion, ethics, civics etc.. were taken out of the hands of the "patrons" and taught on a more nationalised basis. It would be more credible and less "hit and miss".

I'm perfectly happy to see a diversity in the school system in an area such as this, as after all, there is similar diversity in student body and society as a whole. To force conformance to a national standard would be to teach the lowest common denominator whereas my preference would be to aim a bit higher even if it did lead to some conflicting opinions.

circadian

smacl wrote: »

I'm perfectly happy to see a diversity in the school system in an area such as this, as after all, there is similar diversity in student body and society as a whole. To force conformance to a national standard would be to teach the lowest common denominator whereas my preference would be to aim a bit higher even if it did lead to some conflicting opinions.

I'd agree with this. Conflicting opinions is healthy as well, especially if it teaches how to debate and compromise without just shutting up shop, which happens all too often these days.

recedite

circadian wrote: »

Conflicting opinions is healthy as well

Too much diversity in UK society led to Britons chopping off the heads of other Britons in a faraway land.

Among the captives thought to have been killed by the cell were British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, who were beheaded.

circadian

recedite wrote: »

Too much diversity in UK society led to Britons chopping off the heads of other Britons in a faraway land.

That's a tenuous link, at best.

silverharp

recedite wrote: »

Lord Ross of Rathdown found himself in hot water over the last few days after bragging about his department's grant of €150,000 of taxpayers money to a wealthy protestant private school in his constituency.

I actually heard that radio interview, and Lord Ross was explaining that the quid pro quo here is that in return for the public money, the private school would be required to open up the facility to the whole community, citing the YMCA and Taney National School as additional local users of new facility. Without mentioning that Taney is the local COI parish primary school and YMCAHC is a protestant sports and social club already based at the school. Making his whole "public access" arrangement seem somewhat incestuous.

Anyway, just another example of our schools system being dominated by religious patronage, which itself is dependent on political patronage.

to be fair, at least my own kids school opens up the facilities to non school clubs, the gym is used by gymnastic clubs at the weekend for example and for years my kids used the facilities of another school at the weekend. if the facilities werent in a school they would unused most days

recedite

silverharp wrote: »

to be fair, at least my own kids school opens up the facilities to non school clubs, the gym is used by gymnastic clubs at the weekend for example and for years my kids used the facilities of another school at the weekend. if the facilities werent in a school they would unused most days

I'm all in favour of that, but when the "public access" is restricted to a few specially selected church related clubs and orgs, its not quite the same thing.

silverharp

recedite wrote: »

I'm all in favour of that, but when the "public access" is restricted to a few specially selected church related clubs and orgs, its not quite the same thing.

that is cheeky

Bobeagleburger

It's coming soon

Two key moves to reduce the Catholic Church's control of Irish education will be made within weeks, just as bishops prepare for their biggest celebration in almost 40 years.

Plans by Education Minister Richard Bruton to remove a cornerstone of Catholic school admission polices - the so-called 'baptism barrier' - are at an advanced stage.

Story here..

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/brutons-plan-to-remove-schools-baptism-barrier-due-within-weeks-36765235.html

byhookorbycrook

RoboKlopp wrote: »

It's coming soon
Story here..

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/brutons-plan-to-remove-schools-baptism-barrier-due-within-weeks-36765235.html

I seem to remember Ruairí Q organising similar surveys...and feck all happening.

Bobeagleburger

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I seem to remember Ruair organising similar surveys...and feck all happening.

True.

I live in hope!