Religious losing hold on schools

Within 25 years there may not be enough priests and nuns left in religious orders in Ireland to conduct "any school-related function". This conclusion of the education commission of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) is contained in a paper entitled Religious Congregations in Irish Education - A Role for the Future?

The paper points out that in the school year 1969-70 2,300 religious were receiving salaries as teachers, comprising about 33 per cent of all teachers in the voluntary secondary schools sector. In 1995-56 that number had declined to 753, or approximately 5.9 per cent of teachers in the sector. Further, it estimates that about 40 per cent of the latter figure are within 10 years of compulsory retirement.

Part of the decline is explained by the fact that the number of religious retiring from teaching for age reasons "has far exceeded the number entering the profession". But another, if apparently lesser, factor is a trend in many religious congregations to take on new ministries in areas other than education. More than half of these new ministries involve working with the poor and the marginalised.

Given these trends, the document concludes that members of religious orders have a relatively short time in which they can hope to have a "direct influence" on the education system in the Republic.

Looking ahead to "an Ireland where there are few, if any, apostolic religious - a possibility which could become a reality during the second or third decade of the 21st century", the document suggests that the religious need to spell out explicitly what they see as their legacy to education and to invite others to become involved in perpetuating that legacy.

The paper looks at the history of the involvement of religious in Irish education in the 18th and 19th centuries, identifying it as part of a "strongly counter-cultural enterprise" in which those (Catholics) barred from self-advancement were given the means to advance themselves. "To set up schools for Catholics . . . was to side with those who were poor, marginalised and excluded", it says.

The paper argues that the way in which the role of the religious in education has evolved now undermines their potential to act as sponsors of fundamental change in society.

It points out that nearly half the students in religious-run single-sex voluntary secondary schools are from middle- and upper middleclass backgrounds. These schools, it recalls, were set up to educate the children of the poor. It also argues that the management role of religious in such schools could be perceived as "inhibiting the counter-cultural voice".