Mission, vision et valeurs

‘She connected the rich to the poor, the educated and skilled to the uninstructed, the influential to those perceived as of no consequence, the powerful to the weak.’ (Adapted from Tender Courage by Sr. Joanna Regan, R.S.M.) In the area of Primary Education, she was the first of the contemporary founders of religious congregations to seek affiliation to the New National School system and is credited with having adapted creatively and constructively what was then an unsatisfactory governmental system of education. In terms of secondary or intermediate education Catherine’s non-residential pension school for girls anticipated, by more than forty years, the Intermediate Act of 1878. Her concern for the spiritual and material welfare of women was expressed in the setting up of the House of Mercy, where women were trained for work which enabled them to earn their living. Through her policy of self-help and the teaching of crafts and skills, she pioneered technical or vocational education half a century before such education was officially recognised. Her close liaison with the family, through visitation of homes, pointed to the need for family education and community- based learning and can be seen as the forerunner of home/school/community partnership. Catherine McAuley was an inspired, creative innovator regarding teacher education. In Baggott Street she initiated a training programme for female teachers, which was based on the monitor system. This predated by two years the setting up by the State of a similar teaching-training programme for male teachers in Marlborough Street. Her system of education was permeated by religious faith nurtured in an atmosphere of love. Her greatest influence as a teacher came from the recognition that she lived by the values she imparted.