Parents disillusioned by pace of change on religion in schools as deadline slips again

The deadline for primary schools to decide if they intend to change patronage has been extended by another month amid widespread dissatisfaction from many parents who opted for divestment in a nationwide survey.

Schools will now have until November 30th to inform the Department of Education and their patron on whether they wish to be among the first tranche to change patron, move to co-education or single-sex or teach through Irish or English.

However, hundreds of parents have said they are not happy with how their school is handling the results, with many reporting schools repolling parents, not engaging with community at all or in some instances scaremongering them about the impact of change.

One parent told campaign group Education Equality that a meeting was held by their school where people were told if it changes to a multi-denominational ethos, they will no longer be able to say “Dia dhuit”.

The Department of Education primary school survey of more than 200,000 households was published last April.

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It found that about 40 per cent of parents who send their children to religious-run schools would like to see a multi-denominational ethos brought in at those schools.

Individual results for every school were published in June.

An Irish Times analysis of this data showed appetite for change at religious-ethos primary schools is strongest in parts of Dublin and Cork.

Schools were instructed to engage with their local community before informing the department whether they wished to change anything by October 31st.

However, that deadline has now been extended to give schools “time and space to reflect carefully on their survey results and to engage fully with parents and the wider school communities”, the department has said.

Asked how many schools had come forward so far seeking change, the department said “it would not be appropriate to potentially influence such engagement by publishing data on the number of schools at this time”.

“The department is committed to publishing relevant statistics after the conclusion of the local engagement process,” a spokesperson told The Irish Times.

When schools come forward seeking change, the department says it will support them by assigning a dedicated contact to assist them through the process, along with a “range of additional supports”.

The first changes arising from the process are expected to be introduced from September 2027, the department said.

Many parents have expressed frustration and dissatisfaction with how the survey results have been handled by the department so far, and are sceptical about what change, if any, will arise from it.

Education Equality said in a statement the approach so far was “fundamentally flawed” and that parents’ answers in the survey have so far “had little or no bearing on what happens next”.

Maedbh King, who has two preschool aged children and voted for her local school to be multi-denominational, is a parent representative with Education Equality.

The group has been contacted by hundreds of parents who are “quite dissatisfied with how the process has been handled so far”, King told The Irish Times.

“There are many, many parents contacting us whose school [community] voted in an overwhelming majority – some of them up to 70 per cent – to change to a multi-denominational school, and there are many instances of schools either not engaging in the process at all, sending no communication or information, or in many instances, schools that are repolling the school community on the survey again,” King said.

The group has been contacted by parents who say their local school told them not enough parents took part in the survey, by others asking parents to vote again but this time put their name on an envelope, and by others pointing to the wishes the board, the staff or the student council, instead of parents, as a reason for not changing.

“Many parents are feeling very disillusioned with the process because they haven’t seen any indication that their voices are being heard. So even though the deadline has been extended, I still think there’s a lot of scepticism amongst parents as to whether they will actually see any real change,” King said.