Educate Together says many Louth families still lack school choice

Educate Together is calling on the Department of Education and Youth to live up to the promise made repeatedly over the last three years, to launch a national survey of parental preference in school patronage, and says that many Louth families still lack school choice.  

Educate Together is Ireland’s largest and longest-running multi-denominational patron body. There are currently 118 schools in the Educate Together schools’ network, with 97 at primary level. In the past decade, it has opened 50 schools in response to ever-growing demand for its unique, inclusive and democratic model of education. Educate Together schools are state-funded, child-centred and democratically run. They teach the national curriculum, and Ethical Education is taught in place of religion classes. Faith formation classes are offered in Educate Together schools outside of school hours.  

As a democratic organisation, Educate Together says it believes that parents being able to have a say in how their local school is run is vitally important, a right that is being denied to them by continuous delays in the DEY survey.  It is asking the government to:

• Formally announce the survey, including a specific launch date 
• Facilitate a public discourse and national information campaign about school patronage and multi-denominational education 
• Announce and ring-fence appropriate, adequate funding for schools wishing to transfer patronage  

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Equality-based education first came to Louth in 2001, when Le Chéile Educate Together National School was established. In 2014, Ballymakenny College opened its doors, one of the original three Educate Together second-level schools founded in that year.

In 2025 there are four Educate Together schools in Louth, three primary and one second-level. Educate Together hopes to work with more Louth families and communities in the future, to expand access to equality-based education around the county, at both primary and second-level.  

Edward Platt, Educate Together’s Schools Development Officer, elaborated on the importance of enabling parents to have their voices heard: "Although there has been a very encouraging expansion of the Educate Together network over the past 10 years, government policy now makes opening new schools incredibly difficult, with local parents having far less input in the process.

"It is vital that the Department of Education and Youth formally announce the long-awaited survey immediately and give parents agency in shaping what education looks like in their local community.”    

In 2024, Educate Together welcomed St Mary’s School in Dublin into its network, after families and staff at the school expressed their preference to change patronage and the school became Paradise Place ETNS. Educate Together has considerable experience in patronage transfer, having also supported other religious schools to transition to equality-based patronage.       

Edward continued:  “We know that there are many people who are interested to see if equality-based / multi-denominational education would be the right fit for their school communities. Most Educate Together schools are oversubscribed, and we frequently receive queries from families who have no school choice in their community. Every family in Ireland deserves the option of an Educate Together school, if that is the education they want for their children.”  

Educate Together says it hopes that the proposed survey will allow these parents’ voices to be heard, and that the Department will take appropriate action where demand for change is identified, so that school choice will become available in more towns, cities and villages across Ireland.      

Educate Together is encouraging parents to contact their local TD and highlight school choice, reconfiguration and the delay of the parents’ survey as important issues for them. People who would like to see their local school reconfigured to a multi-denominational/equality-based ethos can also contact Educate Together at schooltransfers@educatetogether.ie