A co Clare primary school using the Rudolph Steiner-Waldorf scheme of education has taken a constitutional challenge to the Department of Education's refusal to recognise or fund it. The action, relating to Coolenbridge School, Tuamgraney, opened before Ms Justice Laffoy in the High Court yesterday and is expected to last two weeks.
The proceedings have been taken against the Minister for Education, Ireland and the Attorney General by a pupil, Miss Nora O'Shiel, suing by her mother, Ms Margaret Boyle O'Shiel, a number of the other pupils and parents, and Coolenbridge Ltd, manager and owner of the school.
Mr John Rogers SC, for the plaintiffs, said it was a constitutional action. Under Article 42 of the Constitution the State acknowledges the family as the natural and primary educator of the child and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide for that education.
He said the school was founded in 1986 and was located for a time at Feakle, Co Clare. At one point it had up to 100 pupils and now had about 70. Coolenbridge Ltd, which was incorporated in 1988, ran the school through committees of parents and teachers. Parents were responsible for finance, building and teachers' support.
The school had come into being by parents coming together, he said. The parents had chosen a method of teaching known as Steiner, Steiner Waldorf or Waldorf. That system was based on a method devised by Rudolph Steiner, an Austrian born in 1861. He set up his first school in a cigarette factory in Germany in 1919, and there were now 700 such schools worldwide.
Mr Rogers said the schools had a kindergarten catering for children from the age of four and a school starting when the child was seven. The primary grades operated to the age of 13.
When children go to a Steiner school they get a teacher who stays with them for the seven primary grades. The method of teaching was child centred; children were regarded as continuously evolving and the education must also evolve.
The education was practical in its orientation and included imaginative art and creativity. It also included the rudiments of primary education, reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography and physical education.
The focus was the child, rather than the needs of society, Mr Rogers said. Teachers had to have engaged in a seminar on Waldorf pedagogy for one year, as well as other qualifications.
The method was a deliberate project to educate children for the world in a complete way. The belief was that there was a time for everything, and it intruded on a child's educational possibilities to try to teach them too early.
Mr Rogers said the Clare school had sought recognition and funding from several Ministers for Education. In 1995 it was told the Steiner schools did not meet the requirements of the Department of Education for recognition and could not be grant-aided. It had been told that to qualify for funding it must be recognised as a national school under the "Rules for National Schools under the Department of Education", published in 1965.
He said that document had no statutory basis and was simply given under the hand of the then minister for education, Dr Patrick Hillery. It purported to define primary education as being education up to Standard 6 in accordance with the "rules", but there was no statutory or constitutional definition of primary education.
The plaintiffs are seeking orders directing that the State and the Department provide for free primary education for the pupils at Tuamgraney and recognition for their school. They are also seeking a declaration that the 1965 document is unconstitutional.
They claim their constitutional rights have not been vindicated because of the failure to recognise and grant-aid the school, and they claim they have suffered loss and damage as a result.
The State and Department deny all the claims. Without prejudice to their denials, they say that if recognition and funding were refused, the refusal was not unconstitutional. They deny that the 1965 rules and the requirements for recognition of national schools are unconstitutional.
The defendants further deny that the parents were entitled to establish or maintain the Tuamgraney school or to entrust to it and its teachers the education of their children in accordance with the Constitution.