Catholic control of schooling untenable -- Diarmaid Martin

[Glennshane]

[QUOTE=aggressivesecularist;1786505]

"Besides, if the Constitution properly recognised parental choice, we wouldn't be in a situation where 96 % of schools are denominational,"

Why? How does the Constitution not recognise parental choice? Why are 96% of schools denominational? Why have you and your fellow secularists not availed of the facilites to establish your own secular schools?

"even though substantially less than half of parents express a preference for any denominational model and about half positively express a preference for either non or multi-denominational variants."

So, according to you, there is a market for your preferred type of school. I suspect that you are correct. Please, get your finger out, and establish such schools. If half the population agree with you, there should be no problem getting workers and fund-raisers.

[factual]

Well the real scale of the problem is that the percenatage of students who go to catholic run schools and would consider themselves catholic is much much lower.

When I was in my catholic run school (only few weeks I finished up), we had a survey done of all the people who are weekly mass goers and who would cosdier themselves catholic in my 6th year class. We did this in history class as we were talking about the influence of religion on irish society.

The results were that 2 out of the 24 in the class would go to mass weekly and consider themselves catholic, which is around 8%. Now I know that this is only one class but I would be very surprised to see any higher figures. And yet, for the six years of our school lives, a catholic run order was in conrol of our education. There is where the alarming problem is.

Excellent points. In the 26 counties this reform is overdue for exactly the reasons you give. And in the six counties, moving to a non-denominational approach has obvious benefits.

[Glennshane]

[QUOTE=Factorem;1786839]

"Glennshane: what would you do with all the Catholic-by-name schools? Hold on to them and hope for the best?"

I would leave that to the Catholics in each Catholic parish to decide for themselves. It might be a good thing if some of them were sold off to non-Catholic organisations to run as schools. That would enable Catholic schools to become truly Catholic. But that has to be a decision for the people of the parish.

"(stop being a twat --"

Please stop calling me offensive names. I find those names very hurtful.

"we all know you know how to use the 'quote' button)"

I cannot use the "quote" facility. I am only an Ulster Catholic and so am not very clever.

[Glennshane]

In the 26 counties this reform is overdue for exactly the reasons you give. And in the six counties, moving to a non-denominational approach has obvious benefits.

Yes, Factual. Just as I have long suspected. If you secularists get control over the education of Catholic children in Eire, you will then turn on the oppressed Catholic people of Northern Ireland.

[yellow belly dub]

Excellent points. In the 26 counties this reform is overdue for exactly the reasons you give. And in the six counties, moving to a non-denominational approach has obvious benefits.

Actually a great example of this is when we were practising singing for our graduation mass. Needless to say that 100 lads are not going to be fully interested in singing songs about "the lord is here, let him into your hearts".
Our religion teachers stopped us many times informing us that we will have to behave during the graduation mass as "some people actually beleive in what goes on at mass". Nearly everyone just snignered under their breaths.

[femmefatale]

Excellent points. In the 26 counties this reform is overdue for exactly the reasons you give. And in the six counties, moving to a non-denominational approach has obvious benefits.

Factual, I really object to you talking about strictly non-denominational education in the north as though it's a political necessity or imperative. It suggests that Catholic schools were/are a source of sectarianism and political strife. Reform of education in the 26 counties to provide non-Catholics with more choice is one thing. Imposing integrated education in the 6 counties to combat sectarianism is another issue entirely. It would be best if the two debates could be kept separate. Also, as I explained elsewhere, division and segregation in the north results from (as opposed to it being the cause of) political injustice and conflict. A fair political environment needs to be established first and social integration will follow. Catholic schools aren't responsible for the problems in the north. Political inequality and injustice are the real causes and sources of sectarianism and other social problems, and SF should occupy themselves with addressing them first and foremost.

[lostexpectation]

yes but diarmaid still wants catholic monopoly in schools he gives to state

he talks of pluralism, but that means catholic dominated pluralism

as quinn said were setting ourselves up for even greater catholic control whether by lay people or priests

[Papinian]

Most of the discussion on this thread is based on personal prejudice rather than any knowledge or principles.

I live in London. In England there are state schools and independent schools. The independent schools charge fees but they receive no state funding, unlike Irish secondary fee-charging schools that are funded by the state almost as much as non-fee-charging secondary schools. Independent schools may be Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Church of England, vaguely Christian or indeed completely non-religious.

Most state schools are "non-religious". I also note that even in "non-religious schools" there is a requirement for a daily act of worship, so that no state schools in England are wholly non-religious. About 20-25% of state schools are associated with a particular religious denomination (Catholic, Church of England, Jewish and Muslim). The religious state schools are run relatively similarly to Catholic and Church of Ireland primary and secondary schools in Ireland, but, like all state schools in England, they are subject to more central and local government regulation (e.g. inspections, entry procedures, curriculum) than Irish schools are. For example, when Tony Blair decreed that all schools in England were to teach about the Holocaust all schools after to go along with it. I don't believe that there are any Irish parallels regarding politicians explicitly setting school curricula in this way. Religious state schools can and do give priority in admissions to pupils meeting the religious criteria.

Contrary to the rubbish spouted on this thread by posters who are clearly completely ignorant of England and its education system, the reasons for significantly greater demand by parents for places at religious state schools are as follows:

- The academic performance of pupils at religious state schools is on average (there are exceptions), significantly higher than that of pupils in non-religious schools (This can be verified from the inspection reports and published performance tables.)

- The perception of parents is that pupils at religious state schools are likely to develop in a way that the parents think is better. I'm trying to put this in a value-neutral way but basically the perception is that pupils at religious state schools are less likely to get in trouble with the law, bunch off school, take up smoking or drinking, engage in sexual activities, join a gang, etc. than pupils at non-religious state schools. I have no empirical evidence for this but the fact that parents perceive it suggests that it may be true.

The academic performance of pupils at religious state schools is self-sustaining in the sense that because they have good academic results they attract pupils with interested and committed parents and hence they have good academic results. Contrary to some of the rubbish spouted on this thread the academic performance is not because religious state schools are older and more established than non-religious state schools - in fact the contrary is more often the case.

What is interesting is that the gap between the performance of religious state schools and non-religious state schools has increased over the past twenty years. Most parents here attribute this to the fact that children in religious schools are significantly more likely to be living with both of their parents than children in non-religious schools. Basically, the parents are more likely to be married and the parents are less likely to divorce. Some of it may also have to do with the values of those parents themselves.

Because some fool will surely and wrongly allege it, I note that it is not the case that the religious state schools are full of whites and the non-religious state schools are full of recent immigrants with English as a second language. Religious state schools are in fact more likely to have children of immigrants attending them. One of the most diverse schools I've ever seen is a Catholic primary school that a Ugandan friend of mine is governor of in south London.

Nearly all of the people posting on this thread have displayed that they have no understanding of the actual operation of the education system in Ireland or indeed in any jurisdiction.

Some of the comments like about the availability of divorce were just moronic. Either you have divorce, in which case the rights of those who want to be able to commit to a life-long indissoluable union are being trampled on or you don't have divorce in which case the rights of those who want to be able to commit to a life-long dissoluable union are being trampled on. There's no "natural" right to divorce. Decisions about what relationships are recognised by the state must be based on what is regarded as the general welfare.

In some ways the "fairest" outcome on divorce might be to allow both (i) marriage without the option of divorce and (ii) marriage with the option of divorce. This would be a bit like how the government is now proposing to allow straight couples living together to register their relationship so that there will be three types of straight couples (i) married, (ii) living together and registered so with certain rights vis-a-vis each other and (iii) living together and not registered. Of course, the difficulty with allowing both (i) marriage without the option of divorce and (ii) marriage with the option of divorce is that having two different forms of marriage might itself have negative consequences (although I can't think of any right now). I don't believe in divorce. My girlfriend (not Irish) doesn't believe in divorce. We would like to live in a jurisdiction that would recognise an indissoluable marriage but the best we're going to be able to do is to marry in such a jurisdiction.

[reknaw]

Recognition of realities is the beginning of all wisdom. The Archbishop took his time to start doing that, but better late than never I suppose.

[Odyessus]

Factual, I really object to you talking about strictly non-denominational education in the north as though it's a political necessity or imperative. It suggests that Catholic schools were/are a source of sectarianism and political strife. Reform of education in the 26 counties to provide non-Catholics with more choice is one thing. Imposing integrated education in the 6 counties to combat sectarianism is another issue entirely. It would be best if the two debates could be kept separate. Also, as I explained elsewhere, division and segregation in the north results from (as opposed to it being the cause of) political injustice and conflict. A fair political environment needs to be established first and social integration will follow. Catholic schools aren't responsible for the problems in the north. Political inequality and injustice are the real causes and sources of sectarianism and other social problems, and SF should occupy themselves with addressing them first and foremost.

I agree that references Northern Ireland schools should be kept out of this thread. They have a different system to the republic and it only confuses the issue.