Mary KennyFacts show that faith-based schools still come out on top, writes Mary Kenny
Fascinating to peruse the charts showing “Ireland’s best 500 schools” – even if I am not sure if ‘league tables’ for schools are an unalloyed good.
But judging from these surveys, the best schools in Ireland are still, quite commonly, faith-based schools (and also fee-paying schools). Gonzaga, Glenstal Abbey, Belvedere College and Mount Anville are seldom far from the top educational institutions in this country.
This year, Laurel Hill Colaiste, founded by Marie Madeleine d’Houet of the Faithful Companions of Jesus has emerged as the best school in Ireland. The next best was the Presentation Brothers’ College, Mardyke, Cork, and following that, Scoil Mhuire, Sidney Place, Cork. It’s pleasing to see a Gaelscoil, Colaiste Iosagain, Booterstown, rank next. After these come Gonzaga, Alexandra College, Glenstal Abbey and Mount Anville.
The Teresian School, a Catholic lay school founded on the principles of St Petro Poveda, emerged as one of Ireland’s outstanding schools.
Leagues
Colleges and schools founded by nuns, priests and brothers (and, in the case of Protestant schools, also as faith foundations) still dominate the top rankings of Irish schools leagues. The famous ‘posh schools’ admired in my parents’ time are still among the elite – the Loreto schools, Clongowes, Castleknock, the Holy Child Killiney, Muckross, Rathdown, St Michael’s in Ailesbury Road, Dublin, Blackrock College.
Castleknock ranked as the best school in North Dublin, Colaiste Iosagain, a Catholic all-Irish girls’ school, as the best in South Dublin, Clongowes as the top school in Leinster, and the “Prez” in Cork the finest in that county. In Galway, Colaiste na Coiribe and in Monaghan, Colaiste na Coiribe’s excellence bear witness to the achievements of the Gaelscoils.
And it’s admirable to see Christian Brothers’ schools still doing well, in this survey carried out by the Irish edition of The Sunday Times.
But overall, what does this school report tell us about the aspirations and values of parents and families today? Firstly, that most families are very keen on education, which is a very good thing, but as true in 1915 as it is today. And secondly – for all the discourse about the need for more secular schools, where faith schools excel, parents still cherish them.
High standards, ethical values, academic excellence – and not forgetting attention to sport – are the best guarantors of maintaining faith schools: not arguments in the letters’ page of The Irish Times about admissions’ policies. Though granted, every child should have access to a decent education.
School league tables give us much information about education, and they probably help the schools compete with one another for excellence. That legendary Belfast Falls Road educationalist, Sister Genevieve – there’s a film being made now about her life – was a great one for telling her pupils that they must outdo the competing schools around them.
But there’s a downside too. Schools have been known to exclude weaker students for fear they would bring down the overall exam results. I know this because it happened to me – I was disallowed from taking an exam at Loreto College because the nuns feared my poor academic form would bring down the school’s standards.
That school is now the 17th best in Ireland and I trust that it no longer practises such tactics!
Discourteous atheist slogans
I saw a schoolgirl in Dublin the other day with a small backpack bearing the words: “God-free youth. Believe in yourself.” As an atheistic slogan it was at least a little more courteous than the t-shirt I glimpsed on a young man at London’s Docklands station: This said – “F*** God. Believe in yourself”.
I’m not sure what I think about blasphemy laws: can respect for the sensibilities of others, and sensitivity to faith issues be imposed by law? Can manners be encoded by state supervision?
I would rather debate and challenge blasphemers rather than charge them with breaking a law. I would rather say to that schoolgirl – “there’s no contradiction between believing in yourself and believing in God. Indeed, since Christianity stresses that every single person is unique – ‘every hair of your head is counted’ – it insists that you believe in yourself as a unique and irreplaceable individual”.
We should believe in ourselves. But not only in ourselves. On a social level, it’s worth reflecting on Theodor Herzl’s aphorism: “If I’m not for myself, who’s for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?”
The question answers itself.
Use Facebook in moderation
It was noted, at the end of August, that one billion people around the world are now connected through Facebook, the social media network. It’s a Herculean achievement in global communications.
Yes, Facebook is to be recommended – at its best, informative, entertaining, heart-warming and in the hands of skilled users, pictorially stunning. But, like wine, use moderately! Addiction can be isolating, rather than connecting.