We thank the committee for this opportunity to outline our proposals for the development and roll-out of the Educate Together model for primary and second level schools. There are now 10,000 pupils attending 56 Educate Together national schools in 18 counties. Even if no Educate Together primary schools are opened in the next five years, the number of Educate Together pupils would reach 20,000 as new schools grow to their full capacity. Involved in running these schools are approximately 17,000 parents and 1,400 staff members.
Most Educate Together schools are now in new housing areas and have been established in the past five years. This is now a genuine mainstream movement with a full range of school types, many with DEIS status and assisted learning units. The model is now tried and tested and is becoming increasingly popular. While expanding from 18 schools in 2000 to 56 schools in 2009 represents significant growth, this number of schools is still far from meeting the demand for the Educate Together model of education. The organisation is working in many areas where demand has been identified and has formally notified the Department of Education and Science of its intention to apply to open primary schools in 45 areas in the next three years.
The Educate Together model, of which members will be reasonably aware, is a model of patronage in the Irish system. Educate Together is a company limited by guarantee whose activities are regulated by its memorandum and articles of association and the Companies Acts and whose decisions are made at general meetings of its members. It is a modern, transparent and accountable model of patronage. Its legal foundation obliges all Educate Together schools to be multi-denominational, coeducational, child-centred and democratically run.
The Educate Together schools, coming from an equality and human rights perspective, provide a complete religious education programme as part of a comprehensive ethical education curriculum, the "Learn Together" programme. This programme has four strands, moral and spiritual development, equality and justice, belief systems, and ethics and the environment. All members of the school community participate equally in this programme and no teacher is asked to teach as a religious truth a viewpoint they may not themselves hold. At the same time, families who hold specific religious beliefs and wish to use the school premises for denominational religious instruction or faith formation classes are facilitated, and these classes take place outside the school day on an opt-in basis.
Carefully developed management practice in Educate Together schools ensure that the school's ethos, values and aims are shared and clearly articulated and the whole school community is engaged in an ongoing process of evaluation and review. A fundamental feature of the Educate Together model is that schools are driven from the bottom up by parents and democratic participation in management processes.
We now face the challenge to extend this model to second level and we feel that this represents a significant opportunity for the State. Calls for a new approach to second level education have come from a very wide and diverse number of sources, including State bodies, NGOs, trades unions, academics, business leaders and significant employers and investors in Ireland. Educate Together second level schools will have the same legal obligations to uphold the charter and will be based on the same values of human rights and equality as their primary counterparts. By integrating 21st century teaching and learning strategies comprehensively and purposefully into the curriculum, and by assessing not only what students learn but how they learn, Educate Together second level schools will nurture critical thinkers, problem solvers, effective communicators, creators and innovators. We intend to make qualitative change in the way the curriculum is delivered, starting specifically in the junior cycle programme.
A critical distinguishing feature will be that, building on the success of the Learn Together programme at primary level, Educate Together second level schools will provide an ethical curriculum that focuses on the ethical, moral and social development of young people. In an Educate Together second level school, the inclusive and democratic principle will extend to the whole set of relationships within the school and embrace students, parents and teachers in a new and innovative way. While interest in this type of second level education stretches back 30 years, the increased number of families attending Educate Together schools and the growing demand for this model have contributed to mounting pressure to make such an option available. There are now 12 established start-up groups of parents in different parts of the country and in 2006 researchers from Trinity College Dublin carried out a feasibility study for the opening of a second level school by Educate Together.
I will outline the history of our endeavours to progress this project. We wrote to the Minister in December 2007 drawing her attention to the growing demand for Educate Together second level schools and stating our intention to apply. Despite this we have receive no reply to this application. A further application was formally submitted in March 2008 and again we have had no response to this. To date, a year and three months later, we are still awaiting such a response and we have further made applications for specific schools in Waterford, Gorey, County Wexford, and Lucan, County Dublin. Taking Lucan as an example there are now five 16 classroom Educate Together primary schools in this area, meaning that when these schools are full, there will be ten sixth classes or approximately 300 children leaving Educate Together primary schools each year. There is clearly established demand in the area and correspondence exists between parents and the Department of Education and Science stretching back several years as evidence of this demand. Despite this, it emerged in June 2008 that a new post-primary school planned for the Lucan area, was to be a non-designated community college under the sole patronage of County Dublin VEC. No consultation had taken place with the local community or with potential patrons in the area.
The demand for the Educate Together model of school at both primary and second level is very well established. Typically Educate Together schools are over-subscribed, sometimes to the level of receiving three to four times as many applications for places than can be offered. Educate Together has a proven track record as a patron of schools and its educational model is internationally approved. It has demonstrated its capacity to open schools in an effective, professional and cost effective manner through the rapid expansion of its network at primary level.
The feasibility of opening Educate Together second level schools has been established by independent research and the opening of this type of school will not only allow parents to exercise their constitutional rights but will offer an opportunity to the education system and to society. The only factor limiting the further development of this acclaimed model of school at primary level and its logical development to second level, is the absence of a democratic process for the establishment of new schools. Educate Together is confident that with transparent processes of planning in place for the establishment of new schools, processes which involve community consultation, it can increase its contribution to society by providing more modern, high quality schools in which all children and all young people can develop the skills, values and attitudes necessary to live, work and learn together in the 21st century.
It should be stressed that opening a school under Educate Together's patronage costs the same or less than any done under any other patronage or trusteeship at primary or second level. Educate Together asks that this committee make a formal recommendation to the Minister for Education and Science to recognise Educate Together as a patron of second level schools so that it can proceed to facilitate parents who have clearly expressed a wish to educate their children in this manner.