Integration and the role of
Catholic Schools
Integration requires that people from minority cultures enjoy equal opportunity with those of the majority culture – and that cultures can live together with mutual respect for each’s world-view. Integration places an obligation on Catholic schools to welcome young people from the Travelling Community, from ethnic communities, and from all minorities whether of race, language, religion or values. Catholic schools are bound – through the vision and life of Christ and through his presence – to foster loving relationships with him and with others.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has been quite outspoken – and has established special enrolment measure in primary schools “to help ensure that the schools, while maintaining their Catholic ethos, would establish a realistic mix of religious and ethnic make-up more or less in line with the overall mix in the area”. He declared : “I would be very unhappy to find that Catholic schools were being less open to diversity than others and where necessary I am prepared to take steps to redress such situations”. This stance removes any supposed support for those schools – from all sectors – found by the ‘Equality and Power in Schools’ study to be socially selective : “Although all schools were open to applicants from different social classes within their catchment area, in practice some schools had means at their disposal to discourage applicants from social class groups they did not wish to serve”.
Authentic Catholic-faith presence should focus on valuing, respecting and appreciating what is good in other religions; on critiquing the contextual values in Irish society; on devising strategies for confronting false values.
At State level the rhetoric of inclusion is unfortunately not backed up by funding, either in the special-education needs domain or in the intercultural education domain. Further, the unequal funding of Catholic second level schools places them in the invidious position of wanting to be leaders of integration – but having fewer resources to achieve this than either of the other two providers at second level.
In late 2000, the Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools, and the Joint Managerial Body, brought together a group of school principals to explore the issues around learning for young newcomer students. The education offices of congregations such as the Presentation and Christian brothers have been working tirelessly in the same cause.
Ferdia Kelly is General Secretary of the Joint Managerial Body for Secondary Schools, Emmet House, Milltown,
35 Lr Leeson St
Dublin 2
Ireland
Tel:
+353 1 676 6785
Fax:
+353 1 676 2984
Email:
studies@jesuit.ie