Representatives of all Educate Together Schools will gather this Saturday in the City of the Tribes to review progress and develop policy.
Clearly the pace of diversity in Irish society is resulting in an escalating demand for the provision of schools operating with the Educate Together ethos.
- It has been a momentous year for the sector:
- Becoming the fastest growing sector of primary education
- Implementation of an exciting development program
- Creating a professional national office with five full time and one part time staff members
- opening of seven new Educate Together schools
The AGM is being held in Co. Galway at the school in which Minister Michael Martin in 1999 made the historic promise that the state would provide sites for Educate Together schools.
Despite the gloom on the capital programme, Educate Together’s progress is consistent. Educate Together now have schools in each city in the 26 counties and are advancing to a stage where we will have schools in every county. Two Educate Together schools are moving into new state-of-the-art buildings. This is down to the sheer persistence of school communities.
An interesting part of the precedings will be the admission of seven new schools and the extraordinary human stories that will be told of the experiences of voluntary groups overcoming all kinds of obstacles to build schools.
Policies to be highlighted at the AGM BY Paul Rowe CEO for Educate Together are;
- The State is failing to provide for human rights of citizens by continuing to reinforce the overwhelming monopoly of denominational education in Ireland.
- The total inadequacy of the State mechanism for providing new schools.
- The necessity for a fresh approach to the funding of schools.
