Welsh schools hit by transport cut and decline in Mass attendance

The number of Catholics attending Welsh Catholic schools has suffered a marked decline over the last six years, with experts citing falling Mass attendance and proposals to cut transport to faith schools as factors behind the fall.

Figures released last week by the Catholic Education Service (CES) showed that since 2007 the proportion of Catholics declined from 66.6 per cent to 57.9 per cent, and while the decrease was spread across all school levels, it was much more substantial in the secondary sector.

The CES’ 2013 school census found that just over half of pupils – 53.7 per cent – in secondary schools were Catholics, which was a 2.5 per cent drop from last year.

Paul Barber, the director of the CES, said in the report: “Analysis by year group suggests that the decrease is likely to continue and in the secondary phase even to accelerate over the next five years.”

Education officials in Wales point to policy changes by local education authorities which threaten free school bus travel for pupils attending Catholic secondaries, which traditionally have a wider catchment area than maintained schools.

Anne Robertson, director of Schools for the Cardiff Archdiocese, said: “Pupils go to the nearest school rather than the nearest Catholic school. A number of local authorities in Wales have reviewed the issue of free transport beyond a certain distance. It may well be that, even in areas where it has not happened, parents feel it might, and so believe it is easier for the child to go to the nearest school right from the start.

“We are campaigning in local authority areas where there are suggestions that the authority might be cutting back on discretionary transport.”

Mrs Robertson’s officials are also looking at the possibility that parents are looking beyond the end of secondary school to the post-16 phase. Some schools including one Catholic secondary in Merthyr Tydfil have had their sixth forms replaced by a non-denominational stand-alone sixth-form college. Mrs Robertson suspects that some parents may be choosing Catholic schools in adjoining local authority areas that still have their own sixth form.

She also accepted that a general decline in Mass attendance could be affecting pupil numbers. “A reduction in the number of Mass-goers is bound to have a knock-on effect,” she said.

Eugene Scourfield, head teacher of St Joseph’s secondary school in Port Talbot, which is within a local authority that has decided to withdraw the transport subsidy to children travelling more than two or three miles to school, said the decision was likely to affect numbers in Catholic schools and would disenfranchise poorer children.

He pointed out, however, that Catholic schools had traditionally educated a large number of non-Catholics. “It is not about numbers but about the quality of what we do and the rationale. The Church had just 12 people in it once.”

Welsh commentator, Harri Pritchard Jones, added: “Very many, if not most, Welsh-speaking Catholics send their children to Welsh-medium schools, which have a Christian ethos, but not a Catholic one ... I’m afraid that one factor is the sad decline in religion in Wales.” The Archbishop of Cardiff, George Stack, has said increasing Mass attendance is one of his priorities.