Cathal Barry
The number of schools perceived to be oversubscribed is blown out of proportion, writes Cathal Barry
The number of Catholic primary schools that are oversubscribed is drastically lower than has been reported, The Irish Catholic can reveal.
Despite a widespread perception that 20% of primary schools are oversubscribed, a survey conducted by this newspaper has shown the figure to be less than 2%.
There are 3,200 primary schools in Ireland.
Of the 3,200 schools, 2,900 are run by the Catholic Church, which means 580 of them would need to be oversubscribed to amount to 20% of that particular sector.
However, a survey of diocesan personnel revealed that 46 Catholic primary schools are oversubscribed.
This equates to 1.6% of the 2,900 Catholic primary schools in the country.
Religious education expert Dr John Murray described the findings as “stark”.
“The actual figure is so low compared to the one that is being bandied about in the media. There is a discrepancy that is quite stark, there is no doubt about that.
“It is still a real issue for the schools that are oversubscribed but nationally it is not as big an issue as we have been led to believe,” he said.
Dr Murray insisted, based on the figures, that school oversubscription “definitely shouldn’t be an election issue”.
“People were making assumptions and things were blown out of proportion. For something of that size to be a major election issue would not make sense,” he said.
Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic Schools Partnership (CSP) also dismissed the suggestion that there is an “enormous problem” with regard to oversubscription in schools.
“I think what is absolutely clear is that the problem is not nearly as widespread as what a lot of commentary has suggested. The number of oversubscribed schools around the country is actually very small.”
Proof
Fr Drumm insisted that “the real proof that there is any problem is if there are five-year-old pupils who are incapable of finding a school place”.
“There is no evidence any September that there is any pupil in Ireland that has failed to find a school place and that is the ultimate test of the system.
“Obviously if some have to travel that is very unfortunate but the number of people doing that is extraordinarily small,” he said.
Dr Murray warned many people in Ireland now “incorrectly assume that this is a big problem”.
“It has been put out there in the media that this is a massive problem with a lot of schools oversubscribed, up to 20%, maybe even more than that in people’s minds, and it’s not as big as that.
“It is deceptive and it is misleading for people to be given the idea that a large amount of schools are oversubscribed when in fact it is a very small minority,” he said.
Confusion abounds in oversubscription debate
More schools need to be built in bottle-neck areas, writes Cathal Barry
Ascertaining the exact number of oversubscribed primary schools would appear on the surface to be simple. It should be. But it’s not.
Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic Schools Partnership (CSP) told The Irish Catholic that the principal reason for such confusion over the figures lies in the fact that there is no actual definition of oversubscription.
“People think it’s simple when in fact it’s not,” he said, insisting that the Department of Education and Skills “need to come up with a definition of what it is to say that a school is oversubscribed”.
“If we had that we could look at it and ask schools are they meeting the criteria or are they not.”
Oversubscription, according to Fr Drumm, “cannot be simply equated to a school having more applicants than places because the same parents are applying to multiple schools”.
He said this meant “loads of schools have far more applicants than places but they are not actually oversubscribed”.
A further complexity in school oversubscription, according to Fr Drumm, is that “an awful lot of parents” want to send their children to school when they are four.
He pointed out that a school that is taking in five-year-olds as a policy “will naturally turn away four-year-olds”.
However, he insisted that such schools “are not oversubscribed because it can take those four-year-olds next year”.
Sr Eithne Woulfe, the Director of Education at the Conference of Religious Ireland (CORI) told this newspaper that another factor in the oversubscribed schools, particularly in the older Dublin suburbs, is “the pressure on national schools as a result of the closure of almost all fee paying preparatory schools”, most of which are Catholic or Church of Ireland.
Loreto College on St Stephen’s Green, according to Sr Woulfe, “is the only one of the remaining schools that has not seen a significant downturn in enrolment at this level”.
Demand
Noting that Ireland has been “through a period when the number of births was extraordinarily high”, Fr Drumm said “we are reaching the highest point of demand on the primary school system”.
He noted, however, that the number of births has dropped continuously since reaching a high point in 2011, adding that this would have a “significant impact” on a national level over time.
On the issue of enrolment criteria, Fr Drumm said the argument that geography should be the “prominent determinant” for entry to schools is “rational”. However, he noted that evidence from England would suggest that such an approach is “extraordinarily problematic”.
“Where schools are perceived to be better schools it causes all sorts of difficulties in local communities as people seek to get properties closer and closer to the schools that are most in demand.
“As long as you have schools that people perceive to be the ones they want to get their children into, there is no easy solution to the problem.
“No matter what criteria you publish and apply, if a school is significantly oversubscribed, then there is always going to be disappointment,” he said.
Sr Woulfe said that she felt a societal “shift” has taken place.
“There has been a shift from a denominational view of life to a secular view of life amongst some people. There are people who see religion as bad so they don’t want their children to be influenced by it,” she said, adding that “for others it is the norm, it is part of their life view and they need to be accommodated”.
Noting that “for some people, there would appear to be move towards a new vision of Ireland”, Sr Woulfe warned that it is important to “remember that schools are a public service”.
“They are not a Church,” she said, adding that “in a modern state, you will never have a one size fits all and sometimes the discourse might be seem to prefer that”.
Sr Woulfe also suggested the narrative was part of an “anti-Catholic” agenda.
“Some of it may be anti-Catholic and I suppose the recent history of the Catholic Church in Ireland hasn’t helped,” she said, citing the abuse scandals and the widespread loss of faith as examples.
“I think there is backlash to that,” she said, adding that “it also seems that many of the limitations of our society are being landed on the door of Catholicism.”
“Almost every lacuna, every failure of Irish society since independence is the fault of Catholicity,” she said.
“I think it’s multi-hued in the sense that for some it’s an ideological issue, for some it’s political issue, for some it’s a personal issue, for some it’s a recognition of value and need for greater diversity.
“I think it’s a convergence of discourses and agendas but I think that the objective figures games, the numbers that are being purported, as if someway or another that it is only the Catholic Church’s fault is, in fact, misleading,” she said
So, unlike the perception, it has been established that the actual number of oversubscribed Catholic primary schools in the country is extremely low. This chimes with the divestment debate on many levels.
Divestment
There have been numerous stories about how, when a certain school is identified as a potential for divestment, the handover is vetoed by the parents or the school’s Board of Management. In short, they are generally very happy with the status quo, despite the narrative suggesting otherwise.
The fact that the perception doesn’t match the reality with regard to the oversubscription of schools may be yet another reason for the slow rate of divestment of some Catholic schools to other patron bodies.
On the subject of what defines an oversubscribed school, while the questions may in fact be complex, the answer appears simple.
More schools need to be built in the areas where oversubscription occurs, and built fast.
Facts and figures wide of the mark
The number of schools perceived to be oversubscribed is blown out of proportion, writes Cathal Barry
One would be forgiven for thinking the vast majority of Catholic schools in this country are oversubscribed. Despite a lack of verified facts and figures, the media attention such a narrative has garnered is incredible.
The reportage would seem to suggest that parents up and down the country are trying to enrol their children in schools to no avail.
That’s what has been suggested in the pages of many national and local newspapers, as well as on radio and television. Even The New York Times has jumped on the bandwagon.
The story blew up back in the summer of 2015 and has rumbled on ever since, unsurprisingly considering we are facing into a General Election at the end of this month.
The blame seems to be directed at baptismal certificates and how the use of such documents as enrolment criteria is hindering unbaptised children from gaining access to Catholic schools.
Such a claim, however, has been dismissed at the highest level in the Church here.
Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh told a recent edition of The Irish Catholic that claims that non-believers are being forced to baptise their children in order to get them into their local Catholic school are “hugely overstated”.
He said people would be “almost forgiven for thinking every Catholic school in this country are insisting on baptismal certificates to get into Catholic schools” when in reality it rarely occurs.
“I have never as a priest, in all my years of ministry, come across a situation where I thought parents were bringing children to Baptism simply to get into school. I have no knowledge of this criterion being used,” he insisted.
Nonetheless, a recent editorial in The New York Times criticised the practise, as well as the Church’s control over the vast majority of primary schools.
The same newspaper carried a story days before claiming that “increasing numbers” of non-Catholic families, especially in Dublin, have been left “scrambling to find” alternative schools for their children after being rejected by over-subscribed Catholic schools.
The figure regularly thrown about with regard to oversubscription is 20%. If that figure were true, considering there are some 2,900 Catholic primary schools in Ireland, there would indeed be a crisis. It would mean that some 580 schools around the country are oversubscribed.
However, a survey conducted by The Irish Catholic has shown that figure to be 46. This equates to 1.6% of the 2,900 Catholic primary schools in the country.
Problem
The most bottle-necks, unsurprisingly, lie in the east of the country with the problem more acute in areas of higher population such as Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare and Meath.
The Archdiocese of Dublin, where 17 Church-run schools are oversubscribed, is the area where the problem is most severe.
The figure, however, which has been confirmed to The Irish Catholic by a diocesan spokesperson, still only equates to roughly 5% of schools in the greater Dublin area.
The bottle-neck areas include River Valley, Greystones, Terenure, Cabinteely, Foxrock, Clontarf and Donnybrook.
Similarly, the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin has 11 oversubscribed Catholic schools, seven in Portlaoise and four in Portarlington.
It is understood, however, that two new schools that are in the pipeline for Portlaoise are expected to significantly relieve the situation there.
Meath diocese has between 10-12 schools that are oversubscribed, while the Dioceses of Cork and Ross, Kilmore, and Waterford and Lismore have no more than two each.
So, the perceived figure of 20% that has been bandied about with much authority, in reality, seems to be well wide of the mark.
Catholic primary schools oversubscribed per diocese
Archdiocese of Armagh 0
Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise 0
Diocese of Clogher 0
Diocese of Derry 0
Diocese of Kilmore 2
Diocese of Meath 10-12*
Diocese of Raphoe 0
Archdiocese of Cashel & Emly 0
Diocese of Cloyne 0
Diocese of Cork and Ross 2
Diocese of Kerry 0
Diocese of Killaloe 0
Diocese of Limerick 0
Diocese of Waterford and Lismore 2
Archdiocese of Dublin 17
Diocese of Ferns 0
Diocese of Kildare & Leighlin 11
Diocese of Ossory 0
Archdiocese of Tuam 0
Diocese of Achonry 0
Diocese of Clonfert 0
Diocese of Elphin 0
Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora 0
Diocese of Killala 0
Total 46
Percentage of Catholic primary schools 1.6% *Approximately
