Catholic Ethos Day in Schools?

[hinkar]

Link to BBC news story

Sounds like the Church hasnt fully relinquished its hold.

Are they within their rights here or should be told where to go?

You're being ridiculous.

It's a Catholic Ethos Day in CATHOLIC SCHOOLS!!

You object to Catholic schools being Catholic???

[emmet100]

Link to BBC news story

Sounds like the Church hasnt fully relinquished its hold.

Are they within their rights here or should be told where to go?

You're being ridiculous.

It's a Catholic Ethos Day in CATHOLIC SCHOOLS!!

You object to Catholic schools being Catholic???

The problem is that practically ALL schools are Catholic, with very few secular State schools.

[owenfeehan]

There are very few non-denominational or secular schools out there because the majority of people still think that their son or daughter should go to a nice denominational school in spite of how lapsed they might be themselves.

Most parents have little choice. For example, almost all the secondary schools in Galway are religious owned, and three which aren't have limited subject choices or are Gaeilscoils.

It's nothing to do with demand. It's to do with government policy down through the years to prop up and support religious schools, while failing to adequately provide secular alternatives.

Given that religious denominations actually own all of those schools it would cost the State quite a bit to buy them all to provide State education, and that's assuming the denominations would sell in the first place.

Well if FF/PDs didn't bail out the religious institutions for god knows how many hundred million by their murky deal, then an obvious opportunity for exchange would have arisen.

But instead, FF spent public money on a sectarian bribe, and the Church effectively got financially off the hook for its horrendous misdeeds at the taxpayer's expense.

People should have taken to the streets over it.

[hinkar]

The problem is that practically ALL schools are Catholic, with very few secular State schools.

Yes, and you can opt out of religious classes.

It is of course not just Catholic Schools, but muslim and protestant schools also. No Irish gov will ever start forcing protestant schools (by for example reducing grants) to go secular...

[Molly]

Religion should have no place in the classroom, the teaching of religion should be left to parents and community religious groups.

Parents have the right to have their children educated as they so wish, that right extends to allowing them send their children to a school that reflects their religious ethos and values. In this country the state subsidises education for all, ergo some schools will have religion in the classroom. Any move against this is an attack on the religious freedom and the basic rights of our citizens.

Is it not more of an attack on religious freedom to have all schools teaching religion rather than parents teaching children what they wish? If your not free to go to school and NOT learn religion. Religion isnt an academic subject. Why was it ever taught in school? PE isn’t an academic subject but its taught because most parents don’t know much about PE (muscle groups, streatching, effects of different types of exercise on heart or muscle groups.) religion is a waste of time in schools. It should be a personal thing taught in families.

[owenfeehan]

Labour published a document not so long ago calling for a switch from religious ownership of our schools to public ownership.

How was the "switch" in ownership proposed to take place?

The article was written by Pat Rabbitte in the Irish Independent and didn't engage in specifics regarding financial matters, but presumably there would need to be some sort of buyout (likely phased over time).

But at the moment the state practically pays for almost all the running costs of a school, asset investment and so forth. Apart from the actual cost of lands and buildings (which state grants have largely maintained) all other costs are met primarily by state and sometimes by parental contributions.

I have quoted a section of the article below. You can find the full article here.

Religious education should continue to be part of primary school life, but we cannot continue to maintain a public system of primary education which is so strongly based on religious denomination.

More than 90 per cent of primary schools are run by the Catholic Church, and many of the others are run by other denominations. Yet, only two in five Irish people attend mass once a week, and only one in four of under-35s do so.

It is not surprising that a call for change came this week from the Irish Primary Principals Network.

Principals confront the contradictions in the school system every day.

The vast majority of Irish schools are built with taxpayers’ money. The staff are paid with taxpayers’ money. The running costs are largely met, however inadequately, with taxpayers’ money. Yet, the question of who is admitted to those schools is left to denominational groups.

This is not a major issue if there are places to spare. But what if the school is oversubscribed? The present system allows for places to be allocated on the basis of religious affiliation and could result in a child loosing a place either because her parents are non-practising Catholics who did not choose to have her baptised, or because she is of a different religion entirely.

Unsurprisingly, the Catholic bishops rejected the proposal. See this article.

[owenfeehan]

The problem is that practically ALL schools are Catholic, with very few secular State schools.

Yes, and you can opt out of religious classes.

It is of course not just Catholic Schools, but muslim and protestant schools also. No Irish gov will ever start forcing protestant schools (by for example reducing grants) to go secular...

This is a constitutional right which few people know about and which many schools (like my own former school) don't allow in practice.

I, for one, inquired about being able to absent myself from religion classes while at school, and I was told that it was disallowed. I had no idea about my constitutional entitlement at the time.

In any case, even being able to opt out of religion class doesn't allow a student to opt out of the religious ethos which shapes a school's structure, iconography etc.

Our school had biannual comulsory Catholic masses for example, trips to confession, annual visits by the local bishop. Even our leaving cert graduation ceremony was integrated with a Catholic mass, to which I felt I could no longer attend.

Irish students are caught in a situation where they have very limited options other than to attend Catholic schools, particularly if they want particular "more academic" sets of subject choices.

The staff chosen by Catholic schools are often significantly more conservative than would otherwise occur, and all of this shapes young people's attitudes in life greatly. Remember, there exists an excemption for religious schools from the anti religious-discrimination provisions of the Equal Status Act.

All they have to do to fire a teacher is to say they are no longer complying with the religious ethos of a school and demonstrate some act of failed Catholocism.

It happened to a friend of my father's a few years back. He was fired as a principal of a Catholic primary school after he got divorced in the Protestant faith so that he could remarry.

[dealmachtigeier]

It's nothing to do with demand. It's to do with government policy down through the years to prop up and support religious schools, while failing to adequately provide secular alternatives.

It's more than policy, it's in the Constitution.
It's the job of parents to provide for the education of their children and the job of the State to supplement and aid educational initiative.

Well if FF/PDs didn't bail out the religious institutions for god knows how many hundred million by their murky deal, then an obvious opportunity for exchange would have arisen.

But how exactly did Labour propose to do it?

EDIT: just seen your post above now, thanks.

[dealmachtigeier]

Irish students are caught in a situation where they have very limited options other than to attend Catholic schools, particularly if they want particular "more academic" sets of subject choices.

Agreed. But given that this is an area most people don't care about or think it's a good idea that their children attend a denominational school irrespective of how lapsed they are themselves, how do you think the situation can be changed?

[Maximus]

Is it not more of an attack on religious freedom to have all schools teaching religion rather than parents teaching children what they wish?

You see the point is, all schools don’t teach religion.

This issue is simple, if one accepts the fact education should be subsidised by the state and that parents have the right to educate their children as they so wish, which extends to their religious education, by extension you must accept their right to send their children to a religious ethos school.

Those advocating a forced removal of religion from the classroom are effectively calling for an infringement of our citizen’s rights to educate their children as they choose.