It's time for a radical rethink on how we structure primary education. The State needs to take control of more than paying teachers' salaries. And principals need to be freed up from supporting their boards of management so they can do what they should be doing, argues Sean Cottrell
It must be strange for someone new to Ireland, looking for a school for their child, to try to understand our system. It says "national school" on the outside. They might assume that it is a State national school system. In many ways it looks like it is. The State, through the Department of Education and Science (DES), pays the salaries of teachers, sets their terms and conditions of employment, determines the nature of their work, evaluates the quality of that work, sets the curriculum and monitors standards. Yet the DES does not establish schools; it does not manage them nor does it employ teachers. It probably does not even own the building.
While the State does all of those things that might be expected in a national school system; technically and legally, the board of management of each school is the employer and a patron is the "owner". In most cases, the patron is the local Bishop. This must be difficult for an outsider to understand. Indeed, it is difficult for many of us who grew up in this system to understand.
The current primary school board of management structure was designed in 1975 and "tweaked" in 1995. More than a dozen pieces of legislation have had major impact on schools since then. In addition, school development planning, the revised curriculum, the inclusion of children with special education needs, newcomer children, the DEIS disadvantaged action programme and the National Education Welfare Board, have all added their own incremental change. Can an ownership system from the 19th century with management structures from 1975 meet the complex needs of our schools in 2008?
It has been said that governance is about doing the right things and management is about doing things right. Boards of management have both a governance and management function, but often the difference is not understood. In reality, few boards are engaged in governance activities such as strategic planning, policy development and setting goals. Even where boards are focused more on management issues, how can a board in 2008 manage a school effectively without access to professional services for financial, human resources, construction and legal matters?
The crisis in providing enough places for children in west Dublin in 2007 and the recent changes in enrolment policy in that area have highlighted the religious denominational aspects of the establishment, ownership, patronage and operation of primary schools. School governance must serve a child's educational needs first rather than having that child fit into outdated and segregational views of patronage. This must surely apply not just to enrolling children in new schools but also for all existing schools. Irish society, Irish families and Irish children are no longer homogenous. As the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin has stated: the primary ethos of a school must be educational.
All children are equal in their need for education. We have clearly-defined policies on inclusion relating to special education needs, Travellers and newcomer children. Why then, when it comes to the establishment and governance of schools, are we failing to address inclusion on the key defining characteristic which has in the past had the greatest capacity to create conflict and division - religion? Is there a way of using our primary school system to bring people together rather than drive them apart? Can this be done while respecting and protecting parental and religious rights?
State provision needs to be uniform insofar as it applies to the common education needs of all children and the common management needs of all schools. Up to now, the Irish State has depended, in the main, upon the churches to benevolently provide an educational infrastructure. Is it time for the State to put a "national" infrastructure in place? A system of resources and supports for schools in the areas of financial, human resources, construction and legal matters. Maybe then the role of churches might focus more on supporting parents in faith formation and liturgical preparations rather than worrying about looking after the bricks and mortar?
Every school, regardless of size, must have its own board of management. There are no skill or expertise pre-requisites to becoming a board member By their voluntary nature, boards of management are very different from school to school. Some enjoy high levels of professional expertise and time commitment. Others have little or no professional expertise and, often, low levels of commitment from people more or less coerced to serve on the board.
Does every school need its own board of management? Of 3,300 primary schools in Ireland, approximately 1,000 have three teachers or fewer. Many others are on a shared campus. Yet each of these schools is required to have an eight-person board of management. With a national structure providing the necessary management supports, a better governance function might be provided by a single board for a number of schools in a community.
In the absence of adequate administrative and technical supports for volunteer boards, many principals are unduly preoccupied, and indeed overloaded, with tasks that more rightly belong to a fully-functioning board.
There are critical and courageous decisions to be made around school-based autonomous governance systems and local or regional management structures to support the educational needs common to all children and to allow principal teachers to concentrate on the job of leading teaching and learning.
Sean Cottrell National is director of the Irish Primary Principals' Network. The IPPN conference starts on Thursday in Killarney, Co Kerry
