Education: Nondenominational Schooling

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Nondenominational Schooling

The system of education in Ireland, north and south, developed during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a denominational system under the control and management of the main Christian churches. This occurred despite the fact that when the national (elementary) school system was set up in Ireland in 1831, its main objective "was to unite in one system children of different creeds." While some of the schools that were funded by the Commissioners of National Education in the early years were jointly managed, the main Christian churches put pressure on the government to allow aid to be given to schools under the management of individual churches. This pressure was so effective that by the mid-nineteenth century, 96 percent of schools funded by the government were under the control of one or other of the main Christian churches and remained so. In this respect, the Irish system of education is fundamentally different from systems of education in other parts of the Western world. In most western countries "parallel" systems have evolved; that is, denominational schools exist side by side with publicly controlled schools.

After independence was granted to the twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State in 1921 to 1922, very little change occurred in the control and management of the school system in the south. Three-quarters of a century were to pass before comprehensive legislation in the form of the 1998 Education Act became law. In the north, the education system was immediately restructured after partition to bring it into line with the system in England and Wales, and the 1923 Education Act set up democratic local authority structures to run primary education in the north. However, because the Roman Catholic Church insisted on maintaining the autonomy and separateness of its schools, the education systems in both the north and south remained religiously divided. On both sides of the border virtually all schools, primary and secondary, catered separately to either Catholic or Protestant pupils.

It was not until the 1960s that the system of control and management of schooling began to be questioned. During the 1960s and 1970s there was a growing interest in education in Ireland. Vatican II had encouraged involvement of the Roman Catholic laity in what had traditionally been a clerically dominated church. Some Roman Catholics argued that a strong case could be made from the reading of the documents of Vatican II for the introduction of integrated schools. The troubles in Northern Ireland had erupted afresh, and after 1969 many Irish people were anxious to break down barriers between Protestant and Catholic on the island of Ireland. They felt that the introduction of multidenominational or integrated education could contribute to breaking down these barriers.

In the south the Dalkey School Project (DSP) was set up in 1975 with the aim of opening a school that would be multidenominational, co-educational, and under a democratic management structure, and which would have a child-centered approach to education. The task confronting the project was formidable. The national school system had been undisturbed for over 100 years. There was an established equilibrium between the Department of Education, the churches, and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, the only teacher union representing primary teachers in the Republic of Ireland. There was a price for the churches' control of education: They provided sites for schools and they paid the local contribution toward the capital and running costs of their schools. The state paid the teachers' salaries, the larger share of the capital costs (averaging 85 percent), and an annual capitation grant towards maintenance costs. The DSP realized that the entry fee for any new partner into the network would be high and that it would have to raise funds on a very large scale if it was to succeed in setting up a school.

Four years of lobbying, fund-raising, and preparation were to pass before the first multidenominational primary school—the DSP National School, with about eighty pupils on its roll—was recognized by the southern government in 1978. Politicians of all political parties supported the concept, but there were also powerful antagonists, within and outside government, opposed to such a development. Some bureaucrats at both local and central levels had difficulty in accepting that a multidenominational school could be a valid part of the Irish education system. The DSP National School functioned in temporary premises for six years, and in 1984, when the school moved to a purpose-built school, it had over 300 pupils on the rolls and employed ten teachers.

In 1984 Educate Together was set up as a national coordinating body for schools and groups interested in setting up multidenominational schools. Since then, the number of schools has grown to twenty-eight, catering to more than 4,000 pupils (about 1 percent of all primary school pupils) and employing 200 teachers. These schools aim to meet a growing need in Irish society for schools that recognize the developing diversity of Irish life and the modern need for democratic management structures. Educate Together guarantees children and parents of all faiths and none equal respect in the operation and governing of education. It is facing unprecedented demand for places in its schools and for increased services to schools, and it is under pressure to open new schools in new areas. It is also being urged to promote its philosophy in the wider context of secondary education and pre-school provision. This growing demand can be attributed to various factors in modern Irish life such as the rapid diversification of society, economic growth, increasing population, globalization of the economy, and improved communications. It can also be attributed to the increasing demand of Irish parents to participate as partners in the educational process and to see their children grow up at ease with social, religious, and cultural difference.

In the mid-1970s, when the Dalkey School Project was struggling to obtain state sanction, some parents in Northern Ireland were also actively engaged in trying to convince the Northern Ireland government to provide support for what they referred to as an "integrated" school. Integrated education is described as the bringing together in one school of pupils, staff, and governors in roughly equal numbers from both Protestant and Catholic traditions. It is about cultivating the individual's self-respect and therefore respect for other people and other cultures. Integrated education means bringing children up to live as adults in a pluralist society, recognizing what they hold in common as well as what separates them, and accepting both.

The first integrated school, Lagan College, was established in Belfast in 1981 by the campaigning parent group All Children Together (ACT). In 1985 three more integrated schools opened in Belfast, offering parents in the city an alternative choice to the existing segregated schools. In 2003 there were forty-six integrated schools in Northern Ireland, comprising seventeen integrated second level colleges and twenty-nine integrated primary schools. In addition there were thirteen integrated nursery schools, most of which were linked to primary schools. Like Educate Together schools in the south, integrated schools in Northern Ireland were oversubscribed: in the academic year 2000 to 2001 some 1,140 applicants for places in integrated education had to be turned away due to lack of places. (The coordinating body for integrated education in Northern Ireland is NICIE—the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education.)

Over the years multidenominational education in the south and integrated education in the north have attracted both supporters and detractors, and the growth of the sector has not come without opposition. Opinion polls, however, continue to show widespread support for the concept of multidenominational and integrated education.