The new primary school curriculum may have an increased focus on Stem subjects, languages and personal wellbeing, but it is a missed opportunity to tackle the religious discrimination that is sewn into the fabric of the Irish primary education system.
Parents will continue to be frustrated as non-Catholic children remain isolated and segregated during school. Teachers will go on holding their tongues for fear of risking their careers under the vague and broad prohibition against “undermining the religious ethos” of a school under Section 37.1 of the Employment Equality Act.
Almost 90 per cent of Irish primary schools remain controlled by the Catholic Church. Although they are entirely funded by taxpayers, the patron (in Dublin that means the Archbishop) appoints the board of management, which in turn appoints the principal and teachers. Under the existing curriculum, 2½ hours per week are devoted to Catholic faith formation – almost as much as history, geography and science combined. And this timetabled “faith formation” does not include daily prayers, clerical visits and, crucially, sacramental preparation – to which endless hours are sacrificed in the months leading up to Confirmation and Holy Communion.
What changes are proposed under the new curriculum? Well, under social and environmental education children are now to learn about other religions. “About” is the key word here – children will learn about world religions from a historical and geographical perspective. This is not indoctrination and is not objectionable.
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On the other hand, timetabled Catholic faith formation is to continue as always – albeit, reduced from 2½ to two hours per week for children from first class onwards; or one hour and 40 minutes for younger classes. In itself this reduction is pretty unremarkable – 20 per cent less religious discrimination for older classes is a poor achievement in a 21st-century democracy. Regardless, sacramental preparation will remain unaffected by the new curriculum. In reality, the time spent on religious faith formation will be as long as a piece of string.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Education, Helen McEntee, has offered confused messaging about the faith formation aspect of the new curriculum.
At the heart of the issue for many families is the deeply flawed “opt-out” system. The Constitution sets out at Article 44.2.4 “the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school”. But in practice this means parents having to proactively contact schools to request their child not receive faith formation. Many hesitate at this point, not wishing to stigmatise their child in the classroom or mark them out as different. If they proceed their child will, in any event, remain in the classroom during faith formation, absorbing the lesson regardless while engaged in non-curricular busywork.
The situation is significantly worse in the sacramental years, when opted-out children are brought to church again and again to sit at the back and kill time while their friends prepare for the big day.
On The Last Word with Matt Cooper on Monday, McEntee was asked whether the new curriculum will give parents an effective choice as to whether their child remains in the classroom during daily religious faith formation lessons. She responded that “there is already a very clear structure set out. So if a child is attending a school where the particular patronage, for example, if it’s a Catholic patronage, but they don’t wish to be involved in that particular patronage programme, there is already very clear guidelines set out as to what that child should be doing at that time”.
This will be news to countless parents around the country who have been run ragged by schools when seeking a clear answer to the question of how they will accommodate their opted-out child. The Education (Admissions to Schools) Act 2018 was welcomed for stating that a school’s admissions policy must “provide details of the schools arrangements” where a child’s parents have “requested that the student attend the school without attending religious instruction”. However, in the intervening years, it has become clear that schools are simply refusing to supply any such written “details”.
Instead, in clear breach of the legislation, schools simply say a meeting must be arranged with the principal. For this reason, Education Equality, the organisation I represent, has repeatedly called on McEntee and her predecessors to provide guidelines for schools on “opting out”. None have ever been forthcoming. Nevertheless, the Minister claims these guidelines are in place.
However, in reality, there is no effective way to opt out of faith formation that does not lead to exclusion and discrimination. Even removing a child from the room for these periods is stigmatising – and something schools are quick to point out is beyond their resources. The obvious answer is for any religious faith formation to take place outside school hours on an opt-in basis. This upholds the rights of all and surely could not cause offence to anyone.
The new curriculum was an opportunity to disentangle religious discrimination from education once and for all. Instead, we have an Irish solution to an Irish problem. What we will have now is teachers saying “Christians believe Jesus was the son of God” in one lesson followed by “Jesus was the son of God” in the next. And if they want to keep their jobs they won’t dig any deeper than that.
Paddy Monahan is a teacher, Social Democrats councillor and policy officer with Education Equality
