04.01.2012
Archbishop Welcomes Department of Education Initiative
The Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Michael Jackson, is encouraging all fee–charging schools under Church of Ireland management to participate in and cooperate with a Department of Education initiative to find out how they spend their fee income.
Archbishop Jackson stated that he welcomed the initiative of the Minister for Education and Skills, Mr Ruairi Quinn TD, as outlined in the Budget Statement of December 2011 and which has been highlighted by The Irish Times (3/1/12), to conduct an exploration of how fee–charging schools spend their parental fee income.
“I welcome the initiative of the Minister for Education and Skills, Mr Ruairi Quinn TD, as outlined in the Budget Statement of December 2011, and subsequently highlighted by ‘The Irish Times’ (3/1/12). It seeks to conduct an exploration of how fee–charging schools spend their parental fee–income. This initiative provides an up–to–date opportunity for all such schools to show the ways in which fee–income is being used to supplement the resources of individual schools.
“I welcome also a recognition in the reporting of this issue of the need to maintain a network of schools to enable students of minority denominations to attend a school which lives out on a daily basis the Christian ethos through the characteristic spirit of a particular denomination,” the Archbishop stated.
“As well as offering fee–charging secondary schools the scope to show how fee–income is spent for the benefit of all pupils, this audit will enable schools to demonstrate to the Minister if they are in difficulty and why this is the case. The Minister reiterated to the archbishop of Armagh, the bishop of Cork and me at a meeting in Leinster House before Christmas – itself part of regular and on–going contact – that he is anxious that no Protestant secondary school should have its viability or future threatened through a reluctance to engage with his Department in this specific. For my own part, I encourage all fee–charging schools under Church of Ireland management to participate and co–operate in this initiative,” he concluded.