Sir, – I am appalled at the misinformation communicated in the media where terms such as religious instruction continue to be used while religious education is quite a different, more integrated and rounded concept. I am referring to the circular about religious education in community schools and colleges.
The current programmes on offer for religious education in schools cater for those of all faiths and none and students are encouraged to study those with different religious beliefs, in addition to humanists or atheists.
It is as if everything that smacks of any religious overtone or emphasis is outrightly condemned, as if classrooms are hotbeds of religious freaks and fundamentalists, where the educational value is completely misunderstood and misrepresented. If we are to take educational theorists seriously and pedagogues who speak of catering for multiple intelligences, then it is a shame to squeeze out a subject where space is given to the transcendent, the spiritual or, dare I mention it, God.
And this is the ultimate goal of the secularist agenda: to get religious education completely out of the schools. Religious education is more part of our multicultural and pluralistic society than you care to acknowledge.
And where did the Education Act’s provision of an ethical education go in place of the opt-out clause? Now principals are expected to create a timetable for those students and schools and make provision for other subjects in lieu of religious education.
These developments have ramifications for teachers of religious education, for schools and for society, and I question the merit of such a move. I do not have a problem with individuals who wish to move out of classes but I have a huge problem with an underlying agenda which seeks the elimination of religious education as a subject.
That would be a dreadful impoverishment. – Yours, etc,
LOUISE O’SULLIVAN,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.