Is Religion mandatory in other schools?

njd2010

I'm curious to find out if this is just my school being retarded or if a lot of secondary schools do it.

I go to a public community school, not catholic or whatever- and every student has to do Religion (specifically, religion from the catholic point of view). Doing it as an actual exam subject is optional, but regardless every student is required to sit through 3 classes of it a week.


If so, anyone use this book? It's got some of the most awful, backwards, wrong and invalid arguments I've ever seen... It would be hilarious if we weren't all required to buy the damn thing. It's frustrating wasting our precious last few weeks before the Leaving Cert on this crap.

GoldFour4

No . Religion isn`t compulsary in all schools . We did it as an exam subkect for JC and as a class in TY but it stopped after that . We get study classes instead .:D

njd2010

I very nearly got detention for saying we should be doing study classes instead. The only way to get out of it is to have your parents prove you aren't catholic.

Wonderstruck

Same. We have Religion and Career Guidance after it, but we've had about two classes of them since fifth year. Religion isn't an exam subject for any years in my school, apart from the first years.
That said, a lot of people dislike the noise of the free and just go home to study... so principal sent a strongly worded letter to everyone's parents about how students CANNOT miss class after the teachers had to go in for THREE DAYS to make up missed snow time (my heart bleeds for them )

So, it's study under a different name.

EDIT: When we had the class the teacher didn't care about the amount of Atheists and Jehovah's Witnesses in the class. She wasn't dogmatic or anything

mk6705

Teachers that teach religion in sixth year are being a bit ridiculous really...That's why I go elsewhere and study instead, rather than listening to patronizing dribble...

spurious

Check your board of management. The Catholic Church has a say in running most Community Schools.

The Vocational Education Act specifies that two subjects be taught in VEC schools, Irish and Religious Instruction - they are the only subjects mentioned.

The fact that most voluntary secondary schools are owned by the Catholic or Protestant Churches means they will of course instruct their flock who choose to attend their schools.

Chuchoter

Yeah you have to do it all the way up in my school, but its not an exam subject for LC

MyKeyG

Wonderstruck wrote: »

EDIT: When we had the class the teacher didn't care about the amount of Atheists and Jehovah's Witnesses in the class. She wasn't dogmatic or anything

Yep I was raised a Jehovahs Witness and attended a Catholic school and we never had any trouble with not attending religious classes or even being there when we chose to.

My understanding is that Ireland promotes religious freedom. While a vocational school may be required to teach religion they are still subject to the department of education which is administered by the government.

They are not allowed to dictate that students attending the school are obligated to attend religious classes whether that school is Catholic, Protestant or Buddhist.

spurious

MyKeyG wrote: »

They are not allowed to dictate that students attending the school are obligated to attend religious classes whether that school is Catholic, Protestant or Buddhist.

Vocational schools are required under the Act to arrange such classes for other denominations.

J_E

njd2010 wrote: »

I very nearly got detention for saying we should be doing study classes instead.

That's draconian, just ridiculous.

rainbowtrout

Adro947 wrote: »

Teachers that teach religion in sixth year are being a bit ridiculous really...That's why I go elsewhere and study instead, rather than listening to patronizing dribble...

It's on their timetable, they don't have a choice in the matter. While some schools turn a blind eye and let the teacher give study classes, other schools are quite strict about it and expect that a teacher who has religion classes will teach religion at that time. Just like they would teach any other subject on their timetable.

partyatmygaff

Our religion classes consist of watching movies and the odd study period. Earlier on in the year we were taught about the Rwandan genocide. No actual mention of Religion...

That said, I've skipped 2/3 Religion classes every week so far this year.

MyKeyG

spurious wrote: »

Vocational schools are required under the Act to arrange such classes for other denominations.

Of course what I meant was a Catholic school can't force a non-catholic to attend a catholic religious class, I prob said it wrong. I remember my religion teacher offering any access to any other faith we might be interested in.

I finished 6th year in 2009. We had one religion class a week, where we watched movies, and some people would make up errands that they had to run eg. had to talk to a teacher or get something printed, but would just hang out on the stairwell. We never did any religion or opened a religion book, and there was no option to do religion for the LC. In fact, it wasn't until half way through 6th year that I found out that some schools do religion as a LC subject. Still haven't figured out how that works...

And I went to a fully catholic school, complete with chapel and nuns, right next door to a church. If anything, the religion class was treated as a joke/doss/break.

spurious

I've no doubt the situation in most schools is as it was when I was doing LC 30 odd years ago, when the religion class was when you did your homework or watched films.

Still though, the Catholic Church insists they have some sort of 'ethos' in their schools which allows them to discriminate when choosing to not employ someone who does not fit in with their 'ethos'.

Best person for the job? Well only if they fit our idea of suitable - maybe a single mother, or a non-practising Catholic, or a gay person might not be seen as fitting the 'ethos' and Section 37 of our so called 'equality' Act allows them to discriminate.

21st century Ireland.