Sr Cyril Mooney: Pioneer in inclusive education who taught disadvantaged children in India

Born: July 21, 1936

Died: June 24, 2023

Sr Cyril Mooney, the Loreto nun from Bray, Co Wicklow who inspired educators across the world with her pioneering work in inclusive education, has died aged 86.

In her role as principal of the Loreto School in Sealdah, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Sr Mooney spearheaded a number of educational programmes for disadvantaged children in India, while transforming an exclusive private school for girls into a model of equal access to education.

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At Loreto Sealdah, she introduced a system in which half of the girls paid full fees to attend and the other half, from slums and villages in West Bengal, attended for free. The students in the senior classes also acted as teachers in the Rainbow Programme, a scheme which educates and houses street children with poor literacy and little experience of schooling. Senior students in Loreto schools in Kolkata also travel to villages to assist teachers in primary schools where the ratio is 120 pupils or more to one teacher.

Following its implementation across all Loreto schools in Kolkata, the Rainbow Programme of inclusive schooling was introduced throughout India. “We call them Rainbow Children because you can’t tie a rainbow down,” she said at the time.

In 2010, the Right to Education Act in India made education free and compulsory to all children aged three to 14. A quota of 25 per cent for disadvantaged students also became compulsory for all private schools in India at that time. In an interview with The Irish Times in 2015, Sr Cyril recalled, “The Indian government said if the Loretos can do it, we can do it.”

Sr Mooney also set up the Barefoot Teachers Training Programme, which provides teacher training for young men and women from slums and villages near Kolkata who lacked the educational qualifications to be admitted to teacher training colleges. These “barefoot teachers” [a reference to the idea that you don’t need shoes to walk, therefore you don’t need theory to teach] brought primary education to more than 350,000 village children who didn’t have access to education. A similar initiative trained teachers to teach children in the city slums.

Under the guidance of Sr Mooney, Loreto students also actively sought out child workers, cajoling their employers to let the children go to school. Migrant children in the brick kilns of West Bengal were also given lessons in an open-air field school, so that when they returned to their villages, they wouldn’t fall behind and drop out of school.

A well-known figure in Kolkata, Sr Mooney travelled through the city on her moped in her nun’s habit and runners. Housing for older people in need, microcredit programmes and education for children with special needs were among her other initiatives.

In 2007, Sr Mooney was awarded the Padma Shri Award by the then president of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. This award is one of that country’s highest civilian honours. In 2013, she received the distinguished service award by President Michael D Higgins. She was also awarded honorary degrees from universities in England, India, the United States and from Trinity College Dublin. And she received the NOMA Literacy prize, a Unesco award given to an individual or group who has done most to combat illiteracy.

Sr Mooney grew up Josephine Ann Mooney, the youngest of three children of William Mooney and Julia (née Keenan) in Wolfe Tone Square in Bray. Her father was a farmer and later a foreman on large building projects. Her mother was involved in Cumann na mBan, the Irish republican women’s parliamentary organisation, for a time. As a child, Josephine helped her mother hand out magazines for the Holy Ghost Fathers missions and developed an interest in the work they did. She won a scholarship to attend the Loreto Convent secondary school in Bray.

She entered the convent following her secondary school education and took her vows in 1955 at the age of 19. She left for India the following year, travelling from Dún Laoghaire by ship via England, the Canary Islands and South Africa before reaching India. Initially based in what was then Calcutta, she later studied at Lucknow university where she obtained her Bachelor of Science degree. She completed her doctorate in zoology while teaching at the Loreto school in Lucknow.

[ Loreto nun Sr Cyril Mooney, an ‘incredible’ educational campaigner, dies aged 86 ]

In the early 1970s, she moved back to Calcutta, working first in Loreto House as principal before becoming principal of Loreto Sealdah in 1979. She returned to Ireland a number of times to fundraise for her projects which were generously supported in India and beyond. In 1990, she became a fellow of the Ashoka Foundation, which promotes “changemaker” schools internationally.

Sr Mooney believed education should be non-competitive and participatory, so that students can make their own contributions to the community – which in turn values each of these contributions no matter how small or insignificant. She thought educational rankings were harmful to children’s intellectual, personal and character development. “It’s very important that we create a climate where children feel wanted and blossom and grow to their best potential. That’s why I’m against the cut-throat competition which has come into Ireland and all these grind schools and point systems,” she told The Irish Times in 2015.

Sr Teresa McGlinchey, who lived in the Loreto community in Entally, Kolkata with Sr Mooney for several years, said that Sr Mooney was a very competent scientist, artist and writer. “She was a good-humoured person who wrote songs for every occasion,” she said.

Naomi Peppard, one of her nieces, said that her aunt Josie loved coming home and many of the family also visited her in India. “There was always great excitement when she arrived home from India with a suitcase of exotic things. She was a larger-than-life character, feisty and fun. She was an activist and protector of children who wasn’t afraid to challenge systems.”

Following her retirement from teaching in 2011, Sr Mooney continued to work as an adviser on various education committees. She wrote a series of educational textbooks, entitled We Are the World (Winnipeg, 2017) and a book on her life’s work, Transforming Schools for Social Justice and Inclusive Education (Winnipeg, 2019). The Loreto Sisters said that she will be remembered “as a revolutionary who transformed traditional pedagogical practices and empowered thousands of children, especially those who were poor”.

Sr Cyril (Josephine Ann) Mooney is survived by nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and nephews and members of the Loreto communities in India and Ireland. She was pre-deceased by her brother, Patrick, and sister, May.