Carpenterstown Educate Together

By Katherine Donnelly

Thursday May 01 2008

EDUCATION Minister Mary Hanafin is embroiled in a deepening row with parents in a west Dublin suburb who are demanding that they get the primary school of their choice.

There is fury following the refusal to sanction a new Educate Together multi-denominational school in Carpenterstown for September, which already has a waiting list of 260 children.

Instead, the area has been singled out for one of the three new pilot community primary schools to come under the patronage of County Dublin Vocational Education Committee (CDVEC).

Parents say a long-standing agreement to open a multi-denominational school in Carpenterstown has been broken and are angry the go-ahead has been given to a different school model without consultation.

"We haven't been consulted; we haven't been a factor in the decision-making process," said Maggie Hyland, a parent and chairperson of Carpenterstown Educate Together.

One of the issues exercising parents is the fundamental difference in approach between how Educate Together and the new community primary schools handle the teaching of religion.

Educate Together provides a broad education in world religions, but regards religious instruction as a matter for parents to be done outside school hours, while the community schools will have an inter-denominational approach.

Educate Together is appealing the minister's decision not to recognise a new school under its patronage in Carpenterstown. It has sought legal advice in light of what it claims was a binding agreement reached in 2000.