Threat to Catholic Schools in Northern Ireland

Current status: please support the Bishops in their opposition to the Government initiative.

From CFNews: The Catholic bishops of Northern Ireland have said that they cannot support proposals for a radical restructuring of the region's schools.
The bishops were responding to a report by Sir George Bain, who had been commissioned to propose a comprehensive policy for the schools of Northern Ireland. In that report, Bain pointed to the large number of schools without enough students to justify their expenses, and suggested a steamlining of the system that could lead to the closing of over 400 schools. In their December 6 statement, the bishops said that the proposals 'oppose a serious threat to the right of parents to choose a Catholic Education for their children'. The Bain plan would give a government panel the responsibility for determining which schools are closed or merged with others. That approach, the bishops said, would 'radically undermine a long-cherished Catholic education system which has been recognized for the strength of its distinctiveness and the richness of its tradition and diversity as contributing to the raising of school standards and the promotion of a culture of tolerance and understanding'

For the full text of the Irish Bishops' press release, see here.