Irish bishops express concern with proposal to centralize education

Published: 2006-03-28

DUBLIN, Ireland (CNS) -- A proposal that would centralize the education system in Northern Ireland is causing "great disquiet among school governors, teachers and parents," said Ireland's bishops. The bishops said they were concerned with the proposed single Education Authority, which would change who controls admissions criteria and school staff appointments, currently under local control. "This is something that is of concern to a lot of people, Catholic and Protestant. Unless you have some say over teachers, once they come into a school, you are losing control over ethos, losing the ability to challenge poor performance and losing the ability to harness the good work being done by school principals," said Auxiliary Bishop Donal McKeown of Down and Connor, the diocese based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In a March 28 interview with Catholic News Service, the bishop said there needs to be local control and not a "a civil service-type situation, where individual teachers might be moved around the system, from appointment to appointment, individual schools having no say about who is teaching in the school and how long they are to remain in a particular post."

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