School patronage

Hotblack Desiato

At long last the INTO might - might - do something about the ludicrous place of religion in our primary education system.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/04/03/primary-teachers-urge-removal-of-catholic-religious-certificate-needed-to-teach-in-most-schools/

Primary teachers have called for the removal of the Catholic religious certificate which is required to teach in most national schools. Almost 90 per cent of primary schools are under Catholic patronage where the certificate is a necessary qualification due to the way religion is integrated into the curriculum.

A motion to remove this requirement was passed by a large majority at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation’s (INTO) annual congress in Derry. Delegates also instructed the union to carry out a survey of primary teachers on whether faith formation should continue to take place in primary schools, and if primary schools should have secular or religious patrons.

The INTO is to establish a taskforce on the future of primary school patronage in Ireland and report back within 12 months.

Iscreamkone

The whole idea of the state paying non-believer teachers to teach religious woo to non-believer children is just ridiculous.

Hotblack Desiato

Paddy Monahan has featured on this thread before, good article on where the INTO now finds itself on this issue:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/04/08/opinion-religion-must-move-outside-school-hours-for-the-sake-of-students-and-teachers/

Can the Minister for Education guarantee that we teachers can safely talk about this? Exemptions to equality legislation mean teachers can be fired or lose out on promotion for the vague act of “undermining religious ethos”. As one delegate pointed out at congress, the INTO’s survey of teachers on religion may need to be anonymous for people to express themselves freely. This alone should cause alarm bells to ring in a democratic country. Ireland has changed – our education system must too. Faith formation should be outside school hours and we shouldn’t be afraid to say it.

robindch

Hold the front page, the RCC has divested one school!

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/04/12/catholic-primary-school-in-dublin-switches-to-multideominational-patronage/

Hotblack Desiato

Third decade of the 21st century and this is the first RCC primary school to divest to Educate Together.

The whole process is a farce…

I found this rather aggravating

[ET CEO] Ms Nowlan said patronage transfer is likely to be attractive to communities outside the main urban centres, where there is little prospect of a new school being opened, under current Government policy.

“We are excited about the opportunities this transfer opens up for communities all around the country,” she said. “Up to now, most of Educate Together’s growth has been through the new schools process, so that families outside our main cities have lost out.

Anybody living in a long-established suburb has little prospect of a new school being opened, either, but this is never mentioned. Dublin is far from well-provisioned with ETs but the media, and now ET itself, are happy to publicly pretend this is the case.

Extremely disappointing.

Hotblack Desiato

Upfront with Katie Hannon on RTE1 at 10:40 tonight will have a discussion on religious instruction in schools.

Hotblack Desiato

Rather unhinged contributor from the Catholic Herald there.

Iscreamkone

it’s time for the state to say that they will no longer pay for state employees (teachers) to instruct religion in schools.

If religious groups wish to pay this part of a teacher’s salary then feel free to cough up. Although, I’d prefer to see it out of schools entirely.

In my children’s primary school 23/30% of the children don’t take part in religion.. How many do they need to opt out before it’s stopped completely?

Hotblack Desiato

How long can the sham be maintained?

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/04/23/younger-teachers-in-catholic-schools-less-likely-to-believe-in-god-or-attend-religious-services/

Similarly, the proportion of self-declared Catholics [staff] who attend a religious service once a week, as required by Catholic Church teaching, is 41 per cent, while among the under 40s it falls to 18 per cent.

At primary level, more than half of teachers in Catholic schools “do not believe in a personal God” and under half, 49 per cent, state that they are “not committed and practising Catholics”.

The report notes that even if there is a sustained or increased demand for places in Catholic education, schools are facing a “declining and more diluted pool of Catholics from which to draw both voluntary and professional personnel”.

Letter in today's Irish Times:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2024/04/26/religion-in-the-classroom/

Sir, – The continued contractual obligation on teachers to promote a religious ethos in their schools causes real harm to staff and children (“Younger teachers in Catholic schools less likely to believe in God or attend religious services”, Education, April 23rd).

As teachers, we are obliged by law to teach that Jesus is our saviour, irrespective of whether we share this belief. We are forced to prepare students for first confession by telling them that they are sinners, and that they must confess their sins to a priest.

This inevitably leads to a sense of exclusion for the growing number of “opted-out” pupils, who do not receive adequate teaching engagement each day.

They are visibly excluded not only in the classroom but also in school hallways, where they are noticeably absent from class photos taken at religious events.

This aspect of our education system causes real hurt to children. It affects their sense of wellbeing, makes them feel othered and impacts on their home lives as their loving families attempt to counterbalance the discrimination they face at school.

It should come as little surprise that many teachers try to minimise the amount of class time they spend on religious education. In doing so, they risk running foul of Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, which allows “religious institutions” (ie schools) to take “action which is reasonably necessary to prevent an employee or a prospective employee from undermining the religious ethos of the institution”.

Minister for Education Norma Foley will be aware of the INTO’s recent move to establish a union taskforce on faith formation and school patronage. She must finally engage with this issue by setting out clear timelines for the long-awaited citizens’ assembly on the future of education.

Momentum is building behind this issue, whether the Government chooses to recognise it or not.

Teachers are education professionals, not missionaries. It’s time our schools reflected that reality. – Yours, etc,

ALANA WILHELM,

Teacher Representative Education Equality,

Blessington,

Co Wicklow.