Forum For The Primary Sector 'A Key Objective'

The Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector has been officially launched.

Addressing an audience of education stakeholders, the Minister for Education and Skills, Mr. Ruairi Quinn TD, said the Forum “is a key objective of the Programme for Government for the education sector and I wanted it to get underway as quickly as possible.”

Chair - Professor John Coolahan, Dr. Caroline Hussey and Ms. Fionnuala Kilfeather have been appointed as members of the independent Advisory Group. They will receive and assess the various views and perspectives submitted including those of parents, patrons, teachers and the wider community. The Group will then provide the Minister with policy advice within the Terms of Reference of the Forum.

The Minister called for submissions on a number of specific themes including; Establishing parental and community demand for diversity; Managing the transfer / divesting of patronage; and Diversity within a school or small number of schools in a locality.

Referring to the context of the Forum, Minister Quinn noted: “the significant societal changes that have taken place in Ireland in recent years have led to an increased demand for new forms of multi-denominational and non-denominational schooling as well as increased demand for Irish language schooling. There are real questions to be answered about the match between our type of school provision, the demand for greater diversity and the make-up of the communities which need to be served.”

The Advisory Group will analyse and evaluate the submissions received. It will then convene a conference in the autumn to present its interim report.

Interested parties are invited to make their submissions to the Forum by June 7th.

The Forum is expected to present its final report to the Minister by the end of the year.

(BMcN)