The demand for Catholic education remains strikingly high, but what is the value, asks Tracey Harkin
Some 23 years after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland is still not a society at ease with itself. Recent months saw substantial street violence. Frequently we hear integrated schools being heralded as the answer to these divisions. “Educate them all together”, some say, “and in a generation much of the misunderstanding and animosity will disappear”.
Recently two prominent sportsmen, rugby’s Andrew Trimble and GAA’s Oisín McConville, spoke out on the BBC in support of integrated education”
Yet despite government support and encouragement, only seven per cent of pupils in the North currently attend integrated schools.
Recently two prominent sportsmen, rugby’s Andrew Trimble and GAA’s Oisín McConville, spoke out on the BBC in support of integrated education. For Mr Trimble the answer to our social divisions are obvious: “If someone came from somewhere else and they said, ‘you’ve got social issues and people not engaging with different communities in Northern Ireland’, they would look and say, “Well, your kids don’t spend any time together’. Let’s just educate our kids and then they can do religious stuff at the weekend or weeknights or outside of school hours”.
It is not surprising that many people, particularly those outside Northern Ireland, hold this view. Prof. Jon Tonge, considered an expert on Northern politics, offers an opposing opinion: “blaming segregated education for the vicious sectarianism that too often prevails in Northern Ireland is convenient but intellectually lazy”. He points out that Liverpool has six more Catholic schools than Belfast, and “yet the city’s sectarian problems died out decades ago”.
Catholic schools in the North are financially supported by the state. The plethora of school types and systems undoubtedly creates expensive inefficiencies. A related debate is over the selective educational system, with transfer tests for admittance to grammar schools at age eleven. The Church opposes this system, but many Catholic grammars strongly defend their status.
Faith
And what about the original objective of Catholic schools to help parents transmit the Faith to the next generation? In times gone by Catholic parents sent their children to Catholic schools and supported the faith practice at home. Even when times were hard, financial sacrifices were made to support the schools. Parents were confident that their children’s teachers, many of them priests or religious were themselves faithful Catholics who strove not only to provide academic excellence for their pupils but to pass on the Faith as well.
Yet today many young people are opting out of faith practice at an early age. Parents are frequently not attending church, and so the children are not attending either. Teachers preparing their pupils for First Communion know that after the big day of celebration, those children may not be back to Mass and Communion in the foreseeable future. For many Catholics, parents and teachers alike, their faith has become more nominal. Church attendance may just be for baptisms, weddings or funerals.
Even the most dedicated Catholic teachers have a hard job teaching the essentials of faith when the home situation, and the wider cultural background, does not support it and is often positively hostile. These particular problems of course are not unique to Northern Ireland.
To reflect on these issue, The Iona Institute NI is hosting an online conference ‘Is Catholic education worth keeping in Northern Ireland’ on Saturday June 12 from 11am to 1pm”
The demand for Catholic schools in the North, however, remains strikingly high. Parents still seem to value something in the Catholic ethos, and at least the children may gain some religious and spiritual literacy. Perhaps later in life, some embers of what they have encountered may remain with them, and they may find their way back to the Church.
In light of these realities, how strong a case is there for continuing the effort to maintain Catholic schooling in the North? Are there better ways that we as a Church should explore in supporting parents who want to pass on their faith to their children?
To reflect on these issues, The Iona Institute NI is hosting an online conference ‘Is Catholic education worth keeping in Northern Ireland’ on Saturday June 12 from 11am to 1pm.
We are privileged to welcome an expert and engaging line up of speakers. Including Prof. Francis Campbell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame, Australia and former UK ambassador to the Holy See. Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry, Marie Lindsay, former award-winning principal of St Marys college, Derry and Prof. Peter Finn, principal of St Mary’s University College Belfast.
To register for this free conference please email ionainstituteni@gmail.com and find out more at www.ionainstituteni.org
Tracey Harkin is spokeswoman for the Iona Institute NI.
