Minister signals "baptism barrier" to go

Religious segregation of children in schools is a terrible idea in this modern age. Kids should grow up mingling together with children of all backgrounds if we want to avoid ghettoization in the future.

Faith schools are just prejudice generating devices. If parents feel strongly enough about religious instruction. They can work with their church or mosque etc to provide extra curricular education outside the schools. Teachers in schools should teach knowledge and skills. Not faith and mystery

The_Valeyard wrote: »

All I see is atheist black slapping. Gotta sock it to dem Catholics again!

All I see is you blanket attacking atheists, making few points related to the actual thread, and ignoring the posts (including 2 of mine) of anyone who rebuts what few points you HAVE made.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Parents should be able to choose a Catholic school for their kids if they want. Build more schools for those who wish an alternative.

Unsustainable given the number of alternatives required. We are a pluralist society, with an ever increasing population of atheists and muslims for a start.

A more sustainable solution would be to have a secular curriculum, the content and access to which is entirely blind to religious claims, that is implemented in all schools..... with a modular after school process to append on optional additional classes in any hobby you choose, be it a sport, a religion or an art.

Then all schools will be open to, welcoming of, and available for all people regardless of their race, creed, religion, sex, gender, sexuality or any other pointless arbitrary division.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Posters here want to force my child to attend a secular schooling system, they want to take my choice for my child, to suit their needs.

Maybe you should let posters here tell you what they want, rather than invent false narratives of your own on their behalf. The system I adumbrate above for example is the exact opposite of your fantasy. It would give children (or their parents since a lot of this is the parent making the choice for them) the same or even MORE choice, not less at all.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

They are hypocrites.

Not sure name calling will progress the discussion. Insults demean only the insulter, never the target.

Just a few points, trying to stick to the factually oriented bits of your post;

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And yet we do. If, for example, you were to decide that what is best for your children is to keep them textually illiterate, and entirely ignorant of maths......... we would indeed be stepping in to prevent you from doing so. And so we should.

We do require a certain minimum standard of education (which is extraordinarily minimal and amounts to basic life skills for living in society). That's what we do, we (the State) don't try and tell anyone what we would feel is the best type of education for their children, just as OeJ said.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

People do not OWN their children, they are at best stewards of them, and society and the state very much should be taking a hand in telling parents what education is best for and MANDATORY for their children.

They don't own them, but they are responsible for them, and most definitely are responsible for their education. Mandatory State education is exactly what placing that responsibility in the Constitution avoids; beyond ensuring children receive a certain minimum education the State has literally no place in telling parents what education is best for their children. Ireland isn't a totalitarian State, it's a Republic.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

If people want to teach their children unsubstantiated nonsense in their own time, that's fine with me. But I am not seeing any "ideal" being coherently argued for that the schools should be there to pander to what the parents want their children to learn. Be it religious nonsense, racism, revised history, or that 2+2=5. There is, and should never be, forms for a parent to fill out saying "My child is going to your school and here is the things I want you to be teaching them".

Well, pandering is a rather pejorative term, it has to be said. Better put; parents are, legally, the primary and natural educators of children with the right to provide religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education in their homes or in private schools or in schools recognised or established by the State. So when they choose a school that does so for them, it is obviously because the school is providing the education they want (or at least as close as they can find to what they want )... or 'pandering' (at least to the best degree they can find) as you put it, to what they want their children to learn.. Whether that's a technical school, an academic school, a sports school, a school with a strong charitable ethos, there is no doubt, parents select the school that 'panders' best to their tastes. It's not an ideal, it's a fact.

A better use of the term might be "No one can coherently argue an "ideal" that the State should be there to pander to what they want children to learn; the State has no obligation to provide education, whether that be secular or otherwise."

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

This is the education of our current kids and future generations we are talking about here. We should constantly be reviewing it, asking what we are doing, why we are doing it, whether it is the best thing to be doing, and whether better and more effective paths are open to us.

Absolutely. We certainly shouldn't be handing over our responsibilities to the State, particularly if we think the State could be co-opted into mandating an education for all children which at best ignores and at worst demeans our own moral and ethical views.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

The only thing I think we CAN justify in our schools is teaching children only the things we have actual reason to think true about the world and society and history. And the ideas contained in religions tend to be entirely unsubstantiated nonsense claims with no merit or utility. I see no reason why they have place in our schools or our curriculum and the argument "But they mammy and daddy want it so" is not at all convincing to me any more than "Mammy and Daddy wants the school to teach children that black people are inferior" would be. We are talking about schools here, not al a carte restaurants.

We can definitely justify teaching them things we have actual reason to think true about the world and society and history, though really, it's not the only thing we can justify. We can also justify teaching them the morals and ethics we want to be part of their characters, as well as the things we have actual reason not to think true about the world and society and history, but that we know others hold to be true and understand that knowing this, and understanding why different people think they they have actual reasons to think different things are true, is also important for them to learn. Even so, if Mammy and Daddy want to teach their children that black people are inferior that's up to them; they may find a school that teaches that if they can, or homeschool if not. But it's not up to the State to tell them that they can't teach it, as long as their children also get the required minimum education.

I've avoided picking up on a lot of your post; for the sake of brevity and avoiding quoting long posts in their entirety, and to avoid engaging with simple polemic which doesn't really bear addressing, so I hope you won't mind that.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Most places don't even have a local ET. That includes quite large areas of Dublin, including my one... I suppose I can always move (to where?), emigrate or homeschool, right? :rolleyes:

So which is true? You can't get a place in your local ET or you don't have a local ET?

looksee wrote: »

You are conflating two people here, and why does it matter? The end result is the same.

My apologies if so; when Smacl said "atheist parents such as HB" I didn't think there was another poster on the thread whom the initials fitted?

Still, although the result is probably the same (a child being educated nonetheless, but in a school the parent would prefer not to use) I would say the problem is different; one is the lack of a school a parent would like, the other is the lack of places in a school a parent likes.

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

And it has put Ireland light years ahead in technology, science, industry, finance, wait, no it didn't.
You could argue that the measure of success is solely a good test rate at schools. In that case Ireland wins. All thanks to the magic man in the clouds
Or maybe Ireland could do even better if you jettisoned that old superstitious rubbish.

You could argue that if you wanted, I suppose. It smacks of trying to diminish the (independently assessed) educational achievements of countries simply because they don't conform to your idea of how a country should achieve in education though... kind of a sour grapes sort of thing?

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

OK, pure tin foil hat stuff, but here it goes anyway. Maybe because Ireland has a more authoritarian style, kids achieve better results because of a discouragement of critical thinking and disobedience and an emphasis on conformity (see school uniforms) and simply retaining information, rather than critical analysis and arriving at their own conclusions. It is thus easier to drum knowledge into the children, but due to lack of critical thought and desire to swim with the crowd you see this intelligence and knowledge being unable to stop Ireland being run by a bunch of clowns who couldn't run a flea circus, but who are able to assert themselves over the gullible masses. Simply by the difference of "2+2=4, write that down and remember it" and "2+2=?, tell me your answer and how you arrived at that conclusion". Catholicism merely fits in nicely with the " more authoritarian " theory.

Yep, that does come across as a fairly tinfoil hat type view of the OECDs educational assessment criteria alright. You may as well tell us the Pope is paying them off to push Catholic countries up the ranks, it's an equally reasonable theory I'd say.

Or, we might consider the possibility that educational standards in Irish schools are simply higher than they are in countries who achieve poorer results (like Germany, the UK, France, the US, etc etc).

Exactly Dr Fuzz, our second level system consists of absorption and regurgiation of facts, set essays and rehearsed oral tests

The ideal leaving cert student is a robot with no original thought.

Recent statement from the Catholic Primary Schools’ Management Association on the religious preference rule in admissions policies of Church-run schools, which has been brought to my attention:-

"The Catholic Primary Schools’ Management Association (CPSMA) expressed disappointed with the Minister’s proposals as they have failed to address in any way the current difficulty in oversubscription being experience in a small number of areas in the State.

The CPSMA is unaware of any case of a child being refused admission to a Catholic School solely on the basis of the lack of a baptismal certificate: religious affiliation only comes into play in cases of over subscription; even then, in all cases that we are aware of, children who are not Catholic have been accepted ahead of Catholics due to the sibling rule.

The simple fact is that, in oversubscribed schools, the vast majority of unsuccessful applicants are Catholic.

The CPSMA points out that oversubscription arises not from a lack of baptismal certificates but from Government failure to deliver sufficient school places for local school needs. The Minister’s proposals do nothing to address that. His proposal to treat schools of different faiths in an unequal manner is unusual and some constitutional issues may arise from them."

It seems to be pretty logical stuff ... which shows where efforts, which will bear fruit should be directed ... to providing extra school places ... instead of trying to make choices about how to divide existing inadequate places ... that would test the wisdom of Solomon.