CATHOLIC secondary schools are committed to helping to develop well-structured relationships and sexuality programmes, the president of the Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools, Sister Marie Celine Clegg, told the AMCSS conference in Waterford last week. She distanced the association from "the vocal groups in our society who articulate a frequently negative response to any initiative in this area - such groups are not in our schools and do not represent the attitude of this management association".

She rejected the view in some sections of the media that many mainstream Catholic schools "either shy away from, or approach the complex issue of human sexuality in a mechanical and defensive way."

Clegg welcomed the Minister for Education's decision "to allow each school to tailor the programme to its own needs". She reassured her that "there is little danger that schools will use this freedom to maintain a narrowly focused view of sexuality education which no longer reflects the realities of modern Ireland".

Many Catholic schools had done "pioneering cork" in this area, she said, "producing courses long before there was any question of a Government mandate". She gave the example of the North Western Health Board's Life skills programme introduced in the 1980s and directed by the present principal of a voluntary secondary school in Donegal.

Clegg also rejected the notion that because of the withdrawal of the religious orders, Catholic schools were now "under dire threat". The task facing trustees was to progress new models of school trusteeship which would "reflect the increased role played by lay people," a development which was already foreshadowed by the increasing numbers of lay people chairing school boards of management.

She welcomed the Education Bill's "strengthening of parents' and teachers' roles in the management of schools and in the formation of education policy". The important issues raised in the Bill required "much deeper analysis than is frequently attained by attention-grabbing headlines".

The AMCSS conference dinner was a special occasion this year, held to honour two of the most outstanding figures in modern Irish Catholic education: the long-standing former AMCSS and Joint Managerial Board president, Liam Murphy, and former vice-president Sister Eileen Randles. Both have recently retired from the AMCSS, although Randles was quick to point out that she will continue as general secretary of the Catholic Primary School Managers' Association.