St Mochta’s students want their new building. “Build our school” pic.twitter.com/aiOo185ot3
— Sean Defoe (@SeanDefoe) October 5, 2016
This morning.
Outside the Dáil.
Further to the release of a video by St Mochta’s National School Building Action Group…
Students from the school in Clonsilla, Dublin 15 – where 450 of the schools 907 children are taught in delapidated overcrowded prefabs – call for the building of a new school, which was promised 10 years ago.
Previously: It’s Story Time
Pic and video via Sean Defoe
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Where’s the Irish Times when you need it?
Counting cranes.
“Mister Jones and me…”
Scimping on Education funding for schools, while letting Apple off millions in Tax, and the rest. 10 years is too long to wait for a bloody school that was promised. Once again Irish politicians have No Shame
Last govt. made it a priority to get rid of school prefabs.
Am really surprised that in this case the promised work hasn’t been carried out.
Would love to know what the hold up is.
Have you thought of asking our Minister, Richard Bruton?
…wasn’t Comrade Quinn the Min for Education at the start of the last Government…that explains it …
Aren’t the building and the land it’s on owned by the Catholic Church?
Shouldn’t these children be protesting outside the Archbishop’s Palace?
Pretty moronic statement. It was the department who told them to take on loads of extra students in prefabs on the promise that they would get funding for the buildings they are now being denied. Meanwhile the prefabs are falling apart.
Alison, it’s possible to disagree with someone without insulting them, you know.
Of course the Department of Education is at fault, in too many ways to list. But they don’t own the school. They don’t own the land the school is on. And they have no control over the ethos or entry criteria of the school. So why should they pay – why should *I* pay – to further enrich the Catholic Church?
The state should not be funding schools like this which aren’t inclusive. If the church owns the asset, it should be funding the costs of buildings. Why would the state pay for a private entity which indoctrinates children when it doesn’t even own the asset?
In fact St Mochtas is an incredibly inclusive school. One of the first if not the first Catholic Ethos schools in the country to instate an open enrolment policy which is open to children of all faiths and none. A baptismal cert is neither a requirement nor an asset for any child to access St Mochtas. The Clonsilla area is incredibly multicultural, and the children benefit greatly from this, receiving their education in a richly diverse cultural environment.
ClonsillaGirl: As lovely as that sounds, unfortunately it’s completely untrue. The enrolment policy of St. Mochta’s favours what it calls “Roman Catholic children” over “Non-Roman Catholic children”. Further, it “models and promotes a philosophy of life inspired by belief in God”.
I don’t know your motivation for pretending that it is actually an inclusive school that does not violate children’s rights, but those sort of falsehoods are incredibly damaging.
Is a Catholic school recruiting non-Catholic children including or proselytising?
OK Derek, here is a quote from the admissions policy for 2017 which is readily available online.
“In the interest of balanced integration, at least two thirds of the Junior Infant places will be
offered to Roman Catholic children, with up to one third of the available places being offered to
children of other faiths and none.”
Two thirds of places offered to RC children would be reflective of the community profile in general. There is no mention of “non-RC children”.
And yes, since it is a Catholic school, it promotes belief in God. What’s your point here? You talked about inclusivity. I merely pointed out that St Mochtas is a very inclusive school while maintaining its Catholic ethos, and the school has been somewhat of a trailblazer in this regard.
ClonsillaGirl: That policy – which begins next year and is markedly different from their current policy – is still not inclusive. Children of Catholics are considered by a state-funded institution to be of a different value to children of non-Catholics.
This false idea of inclusivity – allowing a certain number of Catholics to be immersed in Catholicism – is absurd, anachronistic and immoral. That this school can be presented as a “trailblazer” for this pathetic attempt at inclusivity is a damning indictment of this country’s education system.
The policy states “The schools model and
promote a philosophy of life inspired by belief in God.”
Exactly. How can that be inclusive of children who don’t believe in any god, even the Catholic one? Total nonsense to claim this school can be genuinely inclusive or a trailblazer. Why should the state fund schools that discriminate on religious grounds?
So.
Diarmuid Martin has all these kids out crying and shouting and cribbing
With posters n’all
Cause the Department of Ed etc won’t enhance his gangs’ property
Ah here
Is it any wonder
Derek, I actually agree with what you are saying. Far more of our state run schools should be non/multi denominational. But this will not happen overnight. And I for one am glad that in my community there is a school that does not automatically turn children away because they do not have a birth certificate. I read articles in the media of areas where parents feel forced into baptising their children to get them a place in school. This is wrong. All I am saying is that St Mochtas is not one of those schools. I hope that in the future there is a greater choice for parents. But this is where we are now, and St Mochtas is not choosing to close its doors to children of other faiths and none, unlike many other Catholic schools around the country.
If this school was genuinely inclusive it’s enrolment policy would not make any mention of religion whatsoever in terms of children who get priority.
ClonsillaGirl: It will not happen overnight because of the intransigence of the Irish government and the reluctance of the Church to give up the last remnants of its stranglehold over Irish society. A single small piece of legislation that prohibited religious discrimination could happen overnight. School boards could stop discriminating overnight, even without legislation requiring them to do so.
The “solution” that St. Mochta’s will begin to implement next year continues to violate human rights. It will continue to require that parents express their private philosophical convictions. It will continue to lead to the exclusion of children based on their parents’ private philosophical convictions. It will continue to favour one religion over all others with no real possibility of opting out.
*baptismal cert :)