Catholic Herald Reporter THE Newman Demographic Survey has been promised .1. I ,500 by individual friends wishing to help the Survey to extend its services, and it is hoped to raise a further £3,000 from clients and sponsors.
This is announced by the Newman Association in a report on the work done by the Survey since it was established ten years ago.
Reviewing the past ten years, the report states that the Survey has done very successful work in fields of socio-religious statistics and in their application in planning studies. But disappointingly slow progress has been made in the field of research.
Excellent work has also been done on education. But little has been achieved in the fields of pastoral care, the apostolate and vocations.
The report continues: "However, 1963 is not only the end of a decade. It is a turning point in the Survey's development. Late in 1961 the decision was taken to form a new association, limited by guarantee, to take over the Survey from the Newman Association within which it had been conceived. was born, blessed and has grown to maturity.
"The Newman Demographic Survey Limited was registered by the Board of Trade last April. and the new arrangements were approved by the Hierarchy at their Low Week meeting. Invitations to join the new association and its Council have already been sent to a number of dioceses and Catholic organisations and authorities, and it is hoped that the remaining preliminaries will he completed before the Survey's tenth birthday on October 15.
" This reorganisation has been carried through in order to resolve two difficulties: control and finance. For the first time the Survey's governing body will include representatives of its clients and sponsors as well as men and women professionally engaged in the Social Sciences."
It is pointed out that the survey
is now constituted as a Catholic Institute of Socio Religious Studies. with a full time salaried professional staff, paying its way and rendering a valued service to Catholic organisations and authorities at home and abroad, whereas the founders envisaged a purely voluntary body, much more limited in scope.
The Survey's leaders sought unsuccessfully for almost three years the financial means of opening a full-time office. Success came in P/58 with the commission to prepare a report on " The probable teacher deficiency of Catholic Maintained and assisted schools, January 1970."
Following this report, the Minister of Education increased his offer of new places in Catholic Teacher Training Colleges from 1.150 to 1,450 involving about L280.000 additional grant.