Admission to Schools Bill (2013)

robindch

The Department of Education has released an "Regulatory Impact Analysis" which discusses how a (the?) proposed "Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2013" might impact admission to schools.

Summary: Option (3) "Introduce a comprehensive range of provisions in primary legislation that will underpin a cohesive and integrated legislative framework for school enrolment so as to better ensure that schools’ enrolment policies and procedures are non-discriminatory and are applied fairly in respect of all applicants."

Gotcha: page 8, third bullet: "Require all schools to make an explicit statement in their admission policy that it will not discriminate against an applicant for admission on any of the grounds specified while including provision for single sex schools and denominational schools to reflect, in their admission policy, the exemptions applicable to such schools under equality legislation."

http://www.education.ie/en/Parents/Information/School-Enrolment/Draft-General-Scheme-of-an-Education-Admission-to-Schools-Bill-2013-Regulatory-Impact-Analysis.pdf

tl;dr - Equality for the kids of non-religious parents? Go stuff yourselves and your heathen ways.

robindch

The Ombudsman for Children calls for an end to religious discrimination:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/call-for-end-to-religious-discrimination-by-schools-1.1624947

And Kitty Holland isn't happy with it either:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/for-children-with-no-baptismal-certificate-the-school-gates-seem-to-be-closed-1.1624522

Michael Nugent

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection discussed this yesterday. Jane Donnelly, Atheist Ireland’s Human Rights Officer, made the following presentation today to the Committee.

As legislators, what would you do if I was sick, and my local State-funded hospital told me that they might be able to treat me, but only after they first treated all sick Catholics? What would you do if I was burgled, and my local police station told me that they might be able to help me, but only after they first dealt with all Catholic crime victims? What would you do if any State-funded service had two separate queues, one to deal with Catholics first, and another to maybe deal with the rest of us later?

Would you tell me that is okay, because a majority of people in my local area are Catholics, and that is what the local majority wants? Would you tell me that I have a choice to either move elsewhere, or to set up my own hospital or my own police service? Would you tell me that the State has decided to pay Catholics to run these State-funded services according to their own Catholic ethos?

No, you would not. As legislators, you would tell me that you will defend my human rights to freedom of conscience, freedom from discrimination, equality before the law, and private and family life. I know that, because the State has already signed various international human rights treaties in which you have already guaranteed me those human rights. And yet, when it comes to State-funded education, you force me and my children to leave our human rights outside the school gate.

You allow my only local State-funded school to tell me that they admit all Catholic pupils first, and that they might then get around to my children, if there are any extra places available and only if we don’t undermine their ethos. That breaches my human rights to freedom of conscience, freedom from discrimination, equality before the law, private and family life, and the rights of the child. It is not acceptable in a democratic Republic, where all citizens should be treated equally.

Now imagine that my local State-funded hospital, or police force or other public service, not only helps all Catholics before maybe getting around to me, but also actively promotes Catholic faith formation while helping me? What would you tell me then?

Would you tell me, like you are now telling me about our State-funded schools, that I can just opt out of the Catholic faith formation? That still breaches my human rights, because both the UN and the European Court has said that is not enough to protect my human rights. Article II of Protocol 1 of the European Convention (the right to education) obliges the State to respect secularism as a philosophical conviction, and there is a positive obligation on the State to respect this conviction throughout the entire education system.

A positive obligation means that the State must actively do something. It is not just a negative right of permitting us to opt our children out from religious instruction classes. Just opting out will not fulfill the State’s obligations under human rights law. This right to respect is legally an absolute right, not one to be balanced against the rights of others, or the ethos of the school, or to be gradually achieved.

Finally, even if opting out was enough – which it isn’t – we can’t even opt out anyway in practice. Because nearly all State-funded schools integrate their religious ethos into all subjects of the State curriculum. The State is legally obliged to protect secular families from this religious integrated curriculum, because it is not delivered in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner. Just last month the UN Human Rights Committee has asked Ireland what we are doing to protect these human rights, and what progress we are making in setting up nondenominational schools around the country.

As legislators, you wouldn’t allow our hospitals or police force or any other public service, to help Catholics before dealing with anyone else, or to actively promote Catholic faith formation to nonreligious citizens, or to integrate that ethos into all of their work. So why are you doing it with our State-funded schools? Why are you forcing me and my children to leave our human rights outside the school gate?

Atheist Ireland’s written submission describes exactly how these issues breach human rights law, and what changes are needed to protect our human rights, including changing Section 7.3(c) of the Equal Status Act. Please don’t use this committee to just fine-tune our ‘separate but equal’ laws for our State-funded schools, that pretend to be inclusive but that have an admission policy based on discrimination and segregation. Please pass laws that treat all children of the nation equally, regardless of the beliefs of their parents about religion or atheism. Please protect equally all of our human rights to freedom of conscience, freedom from discrimination, equality before the law, private and family life, and the rights of the child.

robindch

^^^ Great stuff -- and totally unarguable.

expectationlost

no problem nothing to see here says bishop drumm http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/no-problem-with-admissions-to-vast-majority-of-schools-1.1626962?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

depend on our indulgence of you

again this is really the states fault that they not enough schools for the population

lazygal

How Christian of him. Happy to have state money funding the indoctrination of his flock, though.

I don't get this whole school set up. Why on earth can't we have the state funding schools receive be contingent on equal opportunity of access based on criteria like siblings (makes sense on a purely practical level), living in an area and age? Why are we still arsing around with school enrollments and practices that mean religious indoctrination is an issue the majority of parents have to deal with, regardless of what one believes or doesn't believe?

Dave!

There were a few letters to the editor yesterday (many of them silly) in response to Kitty Holland's article.

And then I had to stick my own oar in!

Sir, – Fr Paddy Banville and Pádraig McCarthy (Letters, December 13th) make essentially the same point – that if a child does not miss out on a school place due to the “ethos” of the school, some other criteria must be applied. This may be the case – and I share the sentiment that it is the Minister for Education who needs to address the issue of high demand – but that doesn’t mean that it is therefore acceptable to retain overtly discriminatory, sectarian admission policies.

If they had any integrity, the religious institutions would, of their own volition, be introducing fairer policies rather than padding their numbers through the status quo.

It is a pretty damning indictment of both church and State that otherwise non-religious citizens – taxpayers – feel obliged to mime their way through a baptismal ceremony out of fear for their child’s education. – Yours, etc,

Obliq

Brilliant Nice letter.

Delirium

Migrant body seeks end to religious discrimination by schools

An advocacy organisation for migrants has called for a change in the law to prevent schools giving preferential access to children of certain regions.

The Integration Centre published a report today, which looks the main roadblocks to immigrant integration in the Ireland.

There was an “accelerating trend” where one school in an area is becoming a migrant school while the other is becoming the “Irish Catholic” school, chief executive Killian Forde said

Section 7 of the Equal Status Act “needs to be amended” to prevent schools giving “preferential treatment to students on the basis of their religion”, Mr Forde said. Section 7 allows schools to discriminate on the grounds of religion if necessary to protect their ethos.

The State has an “ad hoc approach to patronage”and the organisation is “concerned about how schooling is evolving” , he said.

Manach

Welcome news if that is the case to preseverse the historic and religious ethos of schools and to retain its traditional characteristics so as best to serve the long-standing religious parents faith communities and meet various international obligations to respect religious liberties/freedoms. Especially in light of the high standards such schools already set in OECD surveys on PISA results.

robindch

Manach wrote: »

Welcome news if that is the case to preseverse the historic and religious ethos of schools and to retain its traditional characteristics so as best to serve the long-standing religious parents faith communities and meet various international obligations to respect religious liberties/freedoms.

This point has been done to death on this forum, but to summarize - it's quite inappropriate for a secular state to provide state funds to a religious organization so that they can enforce their own religious orthodoxy, nor for the state to allow undemocratic, gay-hating, sexist and nasty organizations like the catholic church the untrammelled ability to control the nation's schools.

The religious do have a right to indoctrinate their kids in their own religion at their own expense, though it would be far better if they did not indoctrinate their kids at all.

Manach wrote: »

Especially in light of the high standards such schools already set in OECD surveys on PISA results.

This has also been mentioned many times -- the reason that religious schools tend to score slightly higher, at least in the UK, is that religious schools discard stupid students at the point of entry, while claiming that all they're doing is something called "preserving their ethos".

Further analyses have shown that even allowing for the skewed intake, students in religious schools actually fare worse than they'd have done in non-religiously-controlled schools owing, it appears, largely to the amount of time they have to spend learning religious stories rather than things that contribute positively to their education.

Brian Shanahan

Manach wrote: »

Welcome news if that is the case to preseverse the historic and religious ethos

Yes I agree with you, let's keep the ethos of "I can rape whatever kiddy I want and get away with it". Fear of authority is an essential life skill.

Now being serious, of all the teachers I know all but one want religious instruction taken out of the schools. As a former teacher of mine said to me, preparing kids for communion and conformation takes a whole month out of two years of their education, that two months is way too much when the child could be learning basic French, Physics, Home Ec, getting a proper physical education or any of the other useful stuff that could be done instead of learning the fairy stories about the baybee Jebus.

And I'll further say that the bishops' only reason for being so hell bent against inclusiveness in schools is that without forcing kids to partake in confirmation and communion little over 20% of those baptised would get first communion and c.0.1% would be confirmed. If the priests in each parish had to do their duty then even the most committed holy-roller parent would soon find excuse to enusre their children were otherwise occupied during Sunday school.

Michael Nugent

Here is video of Jane Donnelly's presentation to The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8QzcSC3EKo

View

robindch wrote: »

Gotcha: page 8, third bullet: "Require all schools to make an explicit statement in their admission policy that it will not discriminate against an applicant for admission on any of the grounds specified while including provision for single sex schools and denominational schools to reflect, in their admission policy, the exemptions applicable to such schools under equality legislation."

So, in theory no one will be discriminated against but in reality discrimination in favour of some will occur, resulting in others losing out.

It reminds me a bit of apartheid South Africa where the government sub-divided the country into multiple homelands and discrimated in favour of white people in the white people's homelands - all the richer areas - and in favour of black people in all the (black) tribal homelands - all the poorer areas - thus, apartheid South Africa could claim it didn't discrimate against anyone but rather it discriminated in favour of everyone!

shruikan2553

So what he said was "Dont worry, theres no discrimination, rarely will anyone be left out but when needed we have to give a reason so lets just say its because you arent a Catholic"

Hotblack Desiato

Dave! wrote: »

There were a few letters to the editor yesterday (many of them silly) in response to Kitty Holland's article.

Most of the letters (not yours!) and commentary on this issue has got it completely arseways TBH and the original article could have been clearer, imho.

Most letters and comments just lazily blamed the government for not providing enough school places in the area (seems rather unlikely to me in a very mature and long developed suburb)

Her problem is that she lives in an area where the schools are seen as desirable, and most of them have admission policies which prioritise kids from outside the area of the 'right' religion, over and above kids living in the area who are not of that religion. I don't think the article emphasised that point enough, and I didn't see any letters etc. that addressed this specific issue.

There is a multi-d but it hasn't a hope in hell of meeting its demand, either. I'm not sure if it's an ET but afaik all ETs take applications in strict order of application. She got her child's name down at age three weeks(!) and was still nowhere near getting a place, so even this policy is unfair to kids born in the later part of the school year. I haven't seen anyone address that issue, either!

expectationlost

but maybe there are not enough non-religious schools in other areas too, this is dublin wide problem, a big problem, bigger then a parish, bigger then one group of parents, bigger then a local authority,it goes back to the government
you have a point but i think there is a lack of capacity too, there needs to be more schools
are they not many schools with prefabs does not suggest not enough schools

interesting twitter conversation https://twitter.com/KittyHollandIT/status/411036441683054593 Kitty Holland is going to have to travel a bit now too, the portabello school although in different village is just over the canal, thats the one we saw them setting up in the old film censors building? http://www.portobelloetns.org/history.php but has a huge waiting list from a larger catchment area and they didn't really exist when her child was born, nor did the other option they are suggesting basin lane.

http://www.education.ie/en/Find-a-School/School-Search-Results/?level=Primary&geo=6&ethos=-1&lang=-1&gender=-1

I presume she lives in ranelagh so its the group of 5 primary schools in ranelagh/rathmines she's near

she only mentioned 1 catholic school http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/for-children-with-no-baptismal-certificate-the-school-gates-seem-to-be-closed-1.1624522?page=1

“The remaining 17 places are being offered to Catholic children resident within the Catholic parish . . . We regret that we are unable to offer your child a place in our junior infant class for 2014.”

she also had her name down for the COI, she says they may accept from outside the area first but how many?

you can use this map to show the parishes
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=11_2KJEzeN_I4euz7BNFjAusbfyKx8zJP7SjC0NI#map:id=3
the _parish_ rathmines by the canal only has one catholic school in it?

The waiting game
The other two other schools, one a non-denominational Gaelscoil and the other multi-denominational, should surely be more welcoming and as I had his name down with the multi-d since he was three weeks old I was hopeful. However when I called I was told he was “about 220th on the list”. The enrolment secretary told me parents travelled from across Dublin to enrol their children there, such is the demand. Again at at the Gaelscoil, with parents travelling from across the city to get their kids in, he’s 239th on the waiting list.

so that catholic school and multidominational one I presume is the Ranelagh Multi-Denominational National School, is the right religion the deciding factor in them?

was this area covered in their survey we may seems some stats for it, ah yes it was, they say there are 8 primary schools in the area.
http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy-Reports/Report-on-the-surveys-regarding-parental-preferences-on-primary-school-patronage.pdf page ~59

huh, im surprised

they say demand is steady,

Analysis Conclusion
Given the number of respondents who have stated they would avail of a further choice
of patron it is clear that there is a viable demand for change in the area. Exactly how
this change could be facilitated would need to be examined f
urther but the
reorganisation of the schools within the area could result in it being possible to offer
greater choice. It should be noted that any change would not increase the overall
number of pupils to be accommodated in the existing school buildings
in the area.

so the dept of Ed says they need to change a catholic school to an ET school, Im not sure which one they mean.

what we need ninaj900 is stats from the schools to see where their children are from. be interesting to see that for all types of schools, its seem ET doesn't operate a strict catchment policy, choice is more important then distance http://www.educatetogether.ie/sites/default/files/20111028_submission-on-enrolment_0.pdf pdf


there's a hint in the survey

Out 577 Of the total number of valid preferences 235 are from within the parishes of Harolds Cross and Rathmines.
Four hundred and thirty two (432) preferences are from the parishes adjoining these two while the remainder are from outside these parishes

out of 892 http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy-Reports/Report-on-the-surveys-regarding-parental-preferences-on-primary-school-patronage.pdf 225 from outside even the adjoining parishes so about 25% of those that responded are from outside the area wanting to go to schools in that area?, but what is the current number of children actually in school in the area from outside the area?

i wonder would it be possible to find that out through the cso stats available http://census.cso.ie/sapmap/ http://census.cso.ie/sapmap2011/results.aspx?Geog_Type=PA&Geog_Code=10038 can figure anything out from these?

lots of stats here by schools not by area http://www.irelandstats.com/school/ranelagh-multi-denom-ns-rollnumber-19928q/

over thousand comments on that article http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/for-children-with-no-baptismal-certificate-the-school-gates-seem-to-be-closed-1.1624522?page=1# any useful local ones like this, 303th on the list of RMDS
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/for-children-with-no-baptismal-certificate-the-school-gates-seem-to-be-closed-1.1624522?page=1#comment-aHR0cCUzQS8vaXJpc2h0aW1lcy5jb20vRUNITy9pdGVtLzEzODY4Mzg1ODEtNjA3LTIwMQ== catchments areas

jimd2

ninja900 wrote: »

Most of the letters (not yours!) and commentary on this issue has got it completely arseways TBH and the original article could have been clearer, imho.

Most letters and comments just lazily blamed the government for not providing enough school places in the area (seems rather unlikely to me in a very mature and long developed suburb)

Her problem is that she lives in an area where the schools are seen as desirable, and most of them have admission policies which prioritise kids from outside the area of the 'right' religion, over and above kids living in the area who are not of that religion. I don't think the article emphasised that point enough, and I didn't see any letters etc. that addressed this specific issue.

There is a multi-d but it hasn't a hope in hell of meeting its demand, either. I'm not sure if it's an ET but afaik all ETs take applications in strict order of application. She got her child's name down at age three weeks(!) and was still nowhere near getting a place, so even this policy is unfair to kids born in the later part of the school year. I haven't seen anyone address that issue, either!

I have argued the toss here and there on this forum when I dont agree with the sentiments expressed etc. My children have attended and are attending Catholic schools which we would have got into based on locality / application, catholic bias didnt come into it (I think).

In my opinion, however, there should be no Catholic bias at all in pupil selection and I think it is an absolute disgrace that there is one at all in this day and age.
Children are baptised outside school, if someone suggested a religious based selection at 3rd level they would be completely shot down and rightly so and it should be no different at 1st or 2nd level.

I feel that the Department of Education should form an action group of interested / capable persons to draw up a recommended admissions policy for all schools that they fund (Protestant, Catholic, Non-Denominational/ Educate Together). The schools should be given 2 years to implement the policy and prove in some way how it is implemented. Schools that dont implement it should suffer a gradual withdrawal of funds, say 10% per annum and, after 2 or 3 years, they should be threatened with full removal of funding with alternative arrangements for teaching the students put in place where possible.

If some financial restrictions are not put in place to force schools to put in a fair admission system then we will be pussy footing about this in 10 years time. Normal everyday Catholics arent looking for special treatment for their children, we all should be prepared to do whatever is necessary within fair means to get our children educated.

Hotblack Desiato

expectationlost wrote: »

but maybe there are not enough non-relgious schools in other areas too

That goes without saying.

But the point is that her child didn't get a place in any of the religious schools because they're willing to accept kids from outside the area ahead of kids who live there.

expectationlost

ninja900 wrote: »

That goes without saying.

But the point is that her child didn't get a place in any of the religious schools because they're willing to accept kids from outside the area ahead of kids who live there.

she only mentioned 1 catholic school http://www.irishtimes.com/news/educa...1624522?page=1

“The remaining 17 places are being offered to Catholic children resident within the Catholic parish . . . We regret that we are unable to offer your child a place in our junior infant class for 2014.”

where the pupils who get in because of siblings live we don't know,

where the pupils come from in the COE we don't know I'll ask if she can get those numbers after xmas but she did call the school little whic may mean it only has room for 'church of ireland families' from its own parish.

goose2005

View wrote: »

So, in theory no one will be discriminated against but in reality discrimination in favour of some will occur, resulting in others losing out.

It reminds me a bit of apartheid South Africa where the government sub-divided the country into multiple homelands and discrimated in favour of white people in the white people's homelands - all the richer areas - and in favour of black people in all the (black) tribal homelands - all the poorer areas - thus, apartheid South Africa could claim it didn't discrimate against anyone but rather it discriminated in favour of everyone!

Similarly, in Alabama there was no law saying that blacks had to sit at the back of the bus. The law merely said that the driver had the power to allocate seats. And of course any driver who didn't allocate seats properly, or any black (or white) who defied the status quo would get in big trouble

recedite

robindch wrote: »

Summary: Option (3) "Introduce a comprehensive range of provisions in primary legislation that will underpin a cohesive and integrated legislative framework for school enrolment so as to better ensure that schools’ enrolment policies and procedures are non-discriminatory and are applied fairly in respect of all applicants."

Gotcha: page 8, third bullet: "Require all schools to make an explicit statement in their admission policy that it will not discriminate against an applicant for admission on any of the grounds specified while including provision for single sex schools and denominational schools to reflect, in their admission policy, the exemptions applicable to such schools under equality legislation."

There is a bit of a contradiction here, in that they propose changing the law to ban the discrimination (contained in the existing primary legislation or statute law) while at the same time retaining the very exemptions that allow discrimination. If they are going to change the Education Act then they might as well change the Equal Status Act at the same time.

The exemption referred to in the 2000 Equal Status Act is;

(3) An educational establishment does not discriminate under subsection (2) by reason only that...
(c) where the establishment is a school providing primary or post-primary education to students and the objective of the school is to provide education in an environment which promotes certain religious values, it admits persons of a particular religious denomination in preference to others or it refuses to admit as a student a person who is not of that denomination and, in the case of a refusal, it is proved that the refusal is essential to maintain the ethos of the school.

But this was only inserted into equality legislation so as not to contradict the discrimination in schools already legislated for in the 1998 Education Act, which is the one they are now proposing to amend.

A lot of these contradictions can be traced back to the Constitution, which itself derives partly from the ideas of 19th century liberals (Wolfe Tone and the French and American revolutionaries) and partly from De Valera in his 1940's Ireland dominated by the RCC.
A very interesting read on the subject is this paper produced at TCD law school.

The prohibition on endowment of religion contained in Article 44.2.2º has been considered by the Courts in the context of second level education in Campaign to Separate Church and State Ltd v Minister for Education [1998] 2 ILRM 81. In this case, the plaintiff company contended that State funding of chaplains in Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland community and comprehensive schools amounted to State endowment of religion. This funding had commenced in the early 1970s with the introduction of new comprehensive and community schools and was confined to the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland as they were the only denominations which had such schools.

After reviewing the historical background to Article 44.2.2º, and noting, in particular, that the Constitution was enacted at a time when the vast majority of secondary schools in the country were denominationally controlled, Barrington J (with whom Hamilton CJ, O’Flaherty and Denham JJ concurred) held, inter alia, that the payment of monies to a denominational school for educational purposes was not an endowment of religion within the meaning of Article 44.2.2º. The fact that State payment of the chaplains’ salaries indirectly benefited the churches in question (inasmuch as they did not have to spend their own monies on such purposes) was discounted by the judge who pointed out that the same argument could be made in relation to the State payment of teachers’ salaries at denominational schools and clearly the framers of the Constitution did not consider the latter payments to constitute an endowment of religion.

Barrington J went on to point out that Article 42 contemplated children receiving religious education in schools recognised or established by the State but in accordance with the wishes of the parents.....

Barrington J concluded his judgment by adding two caveats to his decision. First, the system of salaried chaplains had to be available to all community schools of whatever denomination on an equal basis in accordance with their needs and, second, it was constitutionally impermissible for a chaplain to instruct a child in a religion other than its own without the knowledge and consent of its parents....

In addition to protecting the State funding of school chaplains, the reasoning in this case may also provide constitutional cover for the display of religious artefacts in publicly funded schools and for the public funding of a curriculum permeated by religious values, the ‘integrated curriculum’. However the reasoning is not without its difficulties. In the first place, it is at least as plausible an interpretation of the Constitution to argue that the non-endowment clause should be used to qualify the principle of State support for denominational education as it is to argue that the principle of State support for denominational education should be used to qualify the non-endowment clause. Indeed insofar as both Keane J in the Supreme Court and Costello J in the High Court relied upon Article 42.4 to qualify Article 44.2.2º, they were invoking a relatively weak obligation on the State to ‘endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative’ to qualify the more robust prohibition on State endowment of religion and it would arguably do less violence to the text of the Constitution to reverse the priority of these two provisions. At best, one would have to accept that the constitutional text is indeterminate on this point and yet the Supreme Court decision does not offer any compelling reason for adopting its preferred interpretation over the alternative contended for by the plaintiffs....



As mentioned at the outset, constitutional policy on education straddles an ideological fault-line within the Irish Constitution. As the power of the Catholic Church waned in recent times, this inherent tension has become more apparent in demands for change in the manner in which first and second level education is provided in this country. To date, the relatively limited jurisprudence on the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion has identified the protection of religious interests as a priority objective, before which the principles of non-endowment of religion by the State and non-discrimination on ground of religious profession, belief or status by the State must give way. However the reasoning of the Supreme Court in one of these cases, the Campaign to Separate Church and Ireland case, is open to question and it remains to be seen whether, in the future, the courts will strike the same balance as it has to date between the religious and liberal elements of the constitutional policy on education.

So it seems that at some time in the (near?) future the way is open for another challenge to the constitutionality of these “exemptions”.
And as we saw with the recent change in abortion legislation, once a piece of legislation is found to be unconstitutional it must be amended to comply with the Constitution, regardless of whether the government in power actually favours the change.

Hotblack Desiato

^ Seems to me the Supreme Court went to great lengths to avoid making a legally sound but politically controversial decision. The primary purpose of a chaplain is to promote a religion. To the extent that they instruct in religion, a portion of the salary of teachers is endowment of religion also.

recedite

That's a good point. The judge maintained that paying for a chaplain was the same as paying for a teacher, but the difference is that a teacher is predominantly there to provide a general education, whereas a chaplain is predominantly there to promote his own religion.

I think the two most clear-cut examples of State endowment of religion in schools are the school chaplains, and also the newer schools that are owned and built by the State but then handed over to a religious patron who uses the school as a means to promote their own ethos, sometimes applying a discriminatory admissions policy.

According to the above document only RC and COI schools employ chaplains, and I think they are generally in secondary schools.
I wonder if any of the new ET secondary schools have ever applied for the funding for this extra member of staff which seems to be available? The person could be called an "ethics officer". They could teach about religions and ethics, chat to students about all the emotional stuff, and of course an extra pair of hands is always useful for library duties, first aid etc..

SpaceTime

Can we just call it what it is : State-sponsored, institutionalised sectarianism and gender discrimination.

If ANY other state service operated this way, that's exactly what it would be called but for some reason primary and secondary education gets away with this.

I don't really see it as all that much different from educating black and white kids separately in the US or South Africa. It should not be happening in 2014 and there are endless nonsensical arguments accepted to support this on-going discrimination.

It's not even an atheist vs religious issue, it's a simple issue of basic human rights!

However, Irish policy around such issues is "we must not upset the apple cart" (or apple tart as someone once said).
It doesn't matter that the Apple Cart in question is no longer fit for purpose and is full of rotten fruit!