OPENING OF SCHOOL YEAR 2008
—————-
Church of the Holy Child, Larkhill, Whitehall, Santry,
30th September 2008
—————-
Church of the Holy Child, Larkhill, Whitehall, Santry,
30th September 2008
We have gathered to thank God, to pray and reflect at the beginning of a new school year. In particular I wish to express my thanks to the teachers present here for their dedication to Catholic education. The ability of teachers to rise to new challenges has been one of the most extraordinary contributions of any professional group to shaping our contemporary Irish society. We celebrate their love, witness and service.
I take the opportunity also to express my appreciation to the members of the Boards of Management of our schools. The Boards have recently been re-constituted and I appreciate the generosity of those who put themselves at the service of our schools and who are an expression of the fact that our Catholic schools are firmly rooted in our local communities.
I thank those whose work involves them in the development and application of education policy. I thank the Department of Education for the on-going leadership it gives; I thank the teachers’ organizations and the Colleges of Education. I thank school principals in a special way.
We are going to see a great deal of change in education in the years to come. There have been great changes in the demographics of our Ireland, both as regards the ethnic makeup of Irish society and especially of its children, but also of the movement in population and the unprecedented increase of population in some areas of North and West Dublin. We are going to see greater variety in Patronage models. Curriculum will have to keep in step with changing times. School buildings and facilities will have to be maintained to a standard worthy of the children of our times and of changing educational theory.
This pattern of change will continue to mark all our efforts in the coming year and, like it or not, our efforts will have to take place in a climate of economic cut-backs, the seriousness of which I feel very few of us have yet fully realised.
In such a climate in which new stakeholders emerge and in which there will be many legitimate claims to greater financial support, which at least for the moment may not be available, I feel that it is vital that the educational community, widely represented here today, should keep its sights focussed, and attract the attention of the wider community and of public opinion, on the essentials about education, about what education is and what its role in society should be.
Everyone feels that their area of activity should receive special and favourable treatment and would wish to be exempted from possible cut backs. That is normal. When I say that in budget proposals education should be prioritised, I am not saying that it should be exempted from cutbacks. I am saying that in the overall – short term and long term – vision of the future of our country, which is the context in which a budget is prepared, it would be disastrous if the role and function of education in society were to be underestimated or undervalued.
The aim of economic policy today must be to restore confidence in the economy and to safeguard our fundamental assets from aggressive speculation. But it must be more. It is about re-launching our economy to carry out its social role. Without any doubt this will depend on the quality of education, on the on-going ability to ensure that the great talents and creativity which our young people possess are harnessed and released, and on our ability to address the difficulties of those whose disadvantage hinders them from realising their talents and putting them at the service of the community.
The aim of economic policy today must be to restore confidence in the economy and to safeguard our fundamental assets from aggressive speculation. But it must be more. It is about re-launching our economy to carry out its social role. Without any doubt this will depend on the quality of education, on the on-going ability to ensure that the great talents and creativity which our young people possess are harnessed and released, and on our ability to address the difficulties of those whose disadvantage hinders them from realising their talents and putting them at the service of the community.
Education is an investment in the creative talents of people. Young people are not just robots to be trained at the service of a static economy. A modern economy requires new generations of people with creativity which they use to form the fundamental values of our future society. Our second reading stresses that the gifts we receive are gifts to be given, to be used for the common good, to be placed at the service of others, but in a framework which is different from that of our market driven world, namely in a spirit of love, in such a way, as the reading notes, “to prefer good to evil”.
When I speak of a path to “the good” I am not engaging in empty moralising: the path to the good is always one which enables the young person to follow the path of love and to create a world which will be a caring one for all who dwell in it. That is a very much a concrete task
When I speak of a path to “the good” I am not engaging in empty moralising: the path to the good is always one which enables the young person to follow the path of love and to create a world which will be a caring one for all who dwell in it. That is a very much a concrete task
Education means leading our young persons towards that vision of society described in the Gospel, namely that they be the humble, merciful, pure in heart, hunger and thirst for what is right. Some will say that is a vision for Christian only, it is a religious vision; you cannot expect others to follow it.
I say that education is not about transmitting facts and knowledge. Education is about enabling young people to manage knowledge so that its fruits can be placed at the service of others. Education is about the type of person that a young person should become. Education must be about releasing the innate goodness and generosity that it is in young people and enabling them to build up within them the ability to resist the craving for wealth, celebrity and power which is often portrayed as what it means to be successful.
I say that education is not about transmitting facts and knowledge. Education is about enabling young people to manage knowledge so that its fruits can be placed at the service of others. Education is about the type of person that a young person should become. Education must be about releasing the innate goodness and generosity that it is in young people and enabling them to build up within them the ability to resist the craving for wealth, celebrity and power which is often portrayed as what it means to be successful.
I am not saying that our young people should shun ambition and success in their lives. But there are different ways in which that success can be lived. We need to instil idealism in our young people, to help them overcome the superficial and to instil in them the confidence and personal esteem which will enable them to realise that they can achieve in their lives but that they can at the same time be persons who commit themselves to the good.
I believe that teachers, perhaps more than most, have an innate ability to recognise talent and generosity in children. It must give a great sense of satisfaction to see a young person make it in life, especially a young person against whom the odds weighed heavily.
In today’s changing world and in the difficult times we are living through, the community of educators should never loose sight of the fundamental aims of education. There is a sense in which the framework of greater pluralism presents our Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Dublin with an unprecedented opportunity to bring to the public square those values which spring from the person and the teaching of the person of Jesus Christ and the wisdom which comes from his person, a wisdom that is valid for all times and all seasons.
