Catholic Education Service: some thoughts

The Catholic Education Service (CES) comes in for some serious criticism. This is extending now to its engagement with the UK governments recent enquiry and announcement with regard to sex education in schools. As a general principle, and not just in the education sector, I believe that Catholics should engage with the professional environments in which they work, with the difficulties and political judgements that that involves. This is the faith-culture boundary.

In this context, I do think there is something to be said in defence of the CES. Even this week, within my role as a trade union branch secretary, I have seen situations in the context of consultations between trade unions and management where trade union colleagues have simply pulled up the draw bridge and dug their heels in rather than engaging with the issues at stake for the consultation. The result has been a failure on their part to influence on behalf of their members - and, in consequence, they have made it difficult for me to influence on behalf of the members I represent.

As far as the sex education issue goes, thinking from the political point of view: if the engagement of the CES with those discussions means that they can establish in the DCSF provisions for sex education the freedom for Catholic schools to teach sex education in accordance with the teaching of the Church, that is a useful political gain. The media coverage of the recent announcement also suggests that the language of parental consultation and involvement is present.

I am also aware of the robust defence of religious schools that has been undertaken by the CES in response to teacher union attacks on such schools. Again, the CES has a position in this political environment that is useful, as politics. That defence might well focus on the social mix of many Catholic schools, compliance with the schools admissions code, contribution to social cohesion. But the fact that the CES are there to do it is politically useful.

There are perhaps questions that can be asked about the role of the CES.

1. A lot of the work that they do provides administrative/practical policy support to Catholic schools and dioceses (eg on contractual matters). So far as I can see, their activity is largely focussed in this sort of area. Should they be stronger in promoting to the Catholic education sector a fully Catholic vision of education, and in particular, of religious education?

2. If the CES acts to represent the Bishops and their dioceses on educational matters, how far should that involve a stronger public stance with regard to a fully Catholic vision of education? Clearly, there is an element of political judgement here, but the CES's critics are clearly looking for a stronger public stance. How far is that a reasonable expectation?

To exemplify these questions, I am looking as a write this post at the "Levels of attainment in Religious Education in Catholic Schools and Colleges" published by the Bishop's Conference Department for Catholic Education and Formation. This can clearly be seen in relation to the structure and levels of attainment of the non-statutory framework for Religious Education, widely used in preparing syllabuses for non-denominational schools and familiar from discussions among RE professionals from the time before the framework. Fine, engagement with the surrounding professional environment, a good and sensible thing for Catholic schooling to be doing. But this document does not explicitly relate attainment levels - ie assessment - to the content of the 1996 Curriculum Directory for Catholic Schools (a strong document setting out the content of Catholic RE across the key stages, relating it to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Vatican II). Okay, some Catholic schools have significant numbers of non-Catholic pupils and it is appropriate to have an assessment framework that can be used with such pupils; but for Catholic pupils, should not the assessment framework be better focussed to assess the Catholic RE curriculum? In practice, is the RE department meant to take the Curriculum Directory (ie a Catholic perspective) or the Levels of Attainment (which can be a non-Catholic framework) as the determining factor for its curriculum planning?

There seems to me to be an unresolved tension here. And it touches on an area of evaluation of Catholic schools which may be rather sensitive. Are these schools succeeding in handing on the Catholic faith to their Catholic pupils? Why should these schools not try to assess this in some way? This should not, and need not, involve an inquistion into the faith practice of the pupils, but why should it not involve an assessment of their knowledge of Catholic teaching and some very basic indicators of their response to it (assessing "learning from" religion and pupil responses to beauty etc are recognised in the wider RE world)?