Scottish Catholic Observer

Barbara Coupar, coordinator of religious education in Motherwell Diocese, has been named today as the new director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service (SCES).

Ms Coupar (above), who is a member of the SCES executive board and has been an adviser in religious education for SCES since January 2009, will succeed outgoing SCES Director Michael McGrath, who has been director since the organisation’s inception in 2003.

“I wish to congratulate Barbara Coupar on being chosen as the next director of SCES,” Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, president of the Bishops Conference of Scotland, said. “I have no doubt that Barbara will continue to develop the excellent work of SCES which now has a very significant profile both nationally and internationally for its work of supporting Catholic education in Scotland and for representing Catholic education to government, local authorities, professional educational bodies and to the media. I know I speak for the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland in wishing Barbara every success in her new post.”

Ms Coupar, who started teaching in 1998 and gained a Bachelor of Divinity in 1996 from Glasgow University, said: “I am honoured and delighted to have been appointed as the next director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service. I hope that I can continue the positive legacy that Michael McGrath has built, while serving the Church and Scottish Catholic schools in a creative and faithful way.”

Mr McGrath (below), who will retire in July, said he was ‘delighted that the bishops have moved swiftly to appoint Barbara as the next SCES director.’

“I know that she will bring great energy, skill and commitment to the post,” he added. “I wish her and all who work to support Scotland’s Catholic schools every success in the years ahead.”

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Pic: Paul McSherry