CATHOLIC SCHOOLS must begin to say “no” to attempts by the State and the family to offload all their responsibilities to educators, the head of the Catholic Schools Partnership has said.
Fr Michael Drumm said schools were coming under enormous pressure as western societies placed more and more onus on them having to deal with matters traditionally handled by the extended family and the community.
Every Government department and interest group wanted space on the school curriculum to “push” their agendas, which were often laudable.
“But every system comes to breaking point. Schools, through their management and governance structures, must begin to say ‘no’. No more than individual believers cannot save the world, so too must we protect our schools from a ‘messiah complex’, where they are expected to deal with all of society’s ills.”
Catholic schools should have limited, achievable goals that included a clear grounding in Catholic beliefs and values, Fr Drumm told a conference on the subject in Kilkenny at the weekend.
Criticisms of the way Catholic schools were managed said more about the commentators making the criticism than the reality in schools, he added.
Catholic schools were caring and inclusive communities that had adapted to demographic change and led the way in integrating the immigrants into local communities, he said.
They were civic institutions providing an important service to the State. There was no contradiction between this civic commitment and the religious ethos of the school.
Existing school structures, where no single person was in charge, provided the necessary checks and balances, Fr Drumm said. Principals and boards of management ran schools, not bishops. “There is no individual who controls the school; rather there is a complex interaction between principal teacher, board of management and patron.”
Catholic schools made an enormous contribution to Irish society and were models of inclusivity and care for all the students who attended them, he said. This dynamic role would continue into the future.
