Mags Gargan
The North’s Minister of Education has praised Catholic school principals for their “vision and commitment to changing education” and their campaign against academic selection.
Education Minister, John O’Dowd, was speaking at the annual conference of the Catholic Principals Association (CPA) in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on Friday. He told the over 300 people at the gathering that they should be “proud” of their work and for having the “courage of your convictions”, vision for change and the dedication to see it through.
“Collectively a lot of progress has been made to create a fairer and equal education system for all of our children and young people. And a lot of people at this conference today have created change to assist all young people to reach their full potential and many young people have benefitted as a result,” he said.
Biggest factor
Addressing the continuing use of admission tests in some schools, the minister said academic selection is the “single biggest factor holding back our education system with unregulated transfer tests in place now for seven years”, but that a momentum is “clearly building in favour of educating children of all abilities and backgrounds together” and he commended the schools which have already taken that step away from academic selection.
Speaking at an INTO conference the same day, Minister O’Dowd challenged the teacher’s union saying there had been no significant anti-selection campaign undertaken by unions during his time as minister and pointing to the CPA as a group at the forefront of the fight against academic selection.
“There is no point in warm words or passing motions or applauding a union spokesperson who says he’s against academic selection. You need to get out and do something about it. That’s the bottom line,” he said.
CPA chairperson, Tony Devlin told The Irish Catholic the minister’s speech was “very affirming”. “It is no secret that we are strongly opposed to academic selection and we welcomed the recent developments where some schools have started moving away from academic selection and we look forward to others joining us. We think it is a social justice issue and an important issue for the future of Catholic education,” he said.
Mr Devlin said he was “delighted” with the turnout at the conference and the quality of the speakers. “We were also joined by people from other educational sectors for the first time which we were pleased about. One new feature was the presence of sixth form and upper sixth students from the various schools and a number of students participated and contributed to the discussions,” he said. “A lot of people remarked on presence of young people, that was very significant.”
Archbishop Eamon Martin also addressed the CPA conference about what it means for a school “to live and proclaim God’s mercy”.
“What can Catholic schools do to offer young people the values, attitudes and skills that will help to sustain them in the future, especially in times of personal disappointment, sickness, weakness, failure or loss? They can do so by becoming ‘hubs of mercy’ in which children and young people learn to respect themselves and to be sensitive to the dignity of others,” he said.
The keynote speaker was Prof. Thomas Groome, Professor of Theology and Religious Education at the Institute of Pastoral Ministry and Religious Education at Boston College, USA.
He said that for 2,000 years the “Catholic Church has been the largest and most influential educator in the world” and that the “commitment to the universal values of the Catholic faith” throughout the whole curriculum of schools “provides a rich philosophy and spirituality for any educator” and the more ‘Catholic’ the educators are, “the more likely they are to serve the common good of society”.
Resolutions
Two resolutions were passed at the CPA conference, calling for immediate action from the trustees to discontinue the use of unregulated testing in some grammar schools and calling for all political leaders to work together to remove all barriers to children accessing high quality education regardless of a child’s social and community background.