School patronage

Hotblack Desiato

At long last the INTO might - might - do something about the ludicrous place of religion in our primary education system.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/04/03/primary-teachers-urge-removal-of-catholic-religious-certificate-needed-to-teach-in-most-schools/

Primary teachers have called for the removal of the Catholic religious certificate which is required to teach in most national schools. Almost 90 per cent of primary schools are under Catholic patronage where the certificate is a necessary qualification due to the way religion is integrated into the curriculum.

A motion to remove this requirement was passed by a large majority at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation’s (INTO) annual congress in Derry. Delegates also instructed the union to carry out a survey of primary teachers on whether faith formation should continue to take place in primary schools, and if primary schools should have secular or religious patrons.

The INTO is to establish a taskforce on the future of primary school patronage in Ireland and report back within 12 months.

Iscreamkone

The whole idea of the state paying non-believer teachers to teach religious woo to non-believer children is just ridiculous.

Hotblack Desiato

Paddy Monahan has featured on this thread before, good article on where the INTO now finds itself on this issue:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/04/08/opinion-religion-must-move-outside-school-hours-for-the-sake-of-students-and-teachers/

Can the Minister for Education guarantee that we teachers can safely talk about this? Exemptions to equality legislation mean teachers can be fired or lose out on promotion for the vague act of “undermining religious ethos”. As one delegate pointed out at congress, the INTO’s survey of teachers on religion may need to be anonymous for people to express themselves freely. This alone should cause alarm bells to ring in a democratic country. Ireland has changed – our education system must too. Faith formation should be outside school hours and we shouldn’t be afraid to say it.

robindch

Hold the front page, the RCC has divested one school!

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/04/12/catholic-primary-school-in-dublin-switches-to-multideominational-patronage/

Hotblack Desiato

Third decade of the 21st century and this is the first RCC primary school to divest to Educate Together.

The whole process is a farce…

I found this rather aggravating

[ET CEO] Ms Nowlan said patronage transfer is likely to be attractive to communities outside the main urban centres, where there is little prospect of a new school being opened, under current Government policy.

“We are excited about the opportunities this transfer opens up for communities all around the country,” she said. “Up to now, most of Educate Together’s growth has been through the new schools process, so that families outside our main cities have lost out.

Anybody living in a long-established suburb has little prospect of a new school being opened, either, but this is never mentioned. Dublin is far from well-provisioned with ETs but the media, and now ET itself, are happy to publicly pretend this is the case.

Extremely disappointing.

Hotblack Desiato

Upfront with Katie Hannon on RTE1 at 10:40 tonight will have a discussion on religious instruction in schools.

Hotblack Desiato

Rather unhinged contributor from the Catholic Herald there.

Iscreamkone

it’s time for the state to say that they will no longer pay for state employees (teachers) to instruct religion in schools.

If religious groups wish to pay this part of a teacher’s salary then feel free to cough up. Although, I’d prefer to see it out of schools entirely.

In my children’s primary school 23/30% of the children don’t take part in religion.. How many do they need to opt out before it’s stopped completely?

Hotblack Desiato

How long can the sham be maintained?

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/04/23/younger-teachers-in-catholic-schools-less-likely-to-believe-in-god-or-attend-religious-services/

Similarly, the proportion of self-declared Catholics [staff] who attend a religious service once a week, as required by Catholic Church teaching, is 41 per cent, while among the under 40s it falls to 18 per cent.

At primary level, more than half of teachers in Catholic schools “do not believe in a personal God” and under half, 49 per cent, state that they are “not committed and practising Catholics”.

The report notes that even if there is a sustained or increased demand for places in Catholic education, schools are facing a “declining and more diluted pool of Catholics from which to draw both voluntary and professional personnel”.

Letter in today's Irish Times:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2024/04/26/religion-in-the-classroom/

Sir, – The continued contractual obligation on teachers to promote a religious ethos in their schools causes real harm to staff and children (“Younger teachers in Catholic schools less likely to believe in God or attend religious services”, Education, April 23rd).

As teachers, we are obliged by law to teach that Jesus is our saviour, irrespective of whether we share this belief. We are forced to prepare students for first confession by telling them that they are sinners, and that they must confess their sins to a priest.

This inevitably leads to a sense of exclusion for the growing number of “opted-out” pupils, who do not receive adequate teaching engagement each day.

They are visibly excluded not only in the classroom but also in school hallways, where they are noticeably absent from class photos taken at religious events.

This aspect of our education system causes real hurt to children. It affects their sense of wellbeing, makes them feel othered and impacts on their home lives as their loving families attempt to counterbalance the discrimination they face at school.

It should come as little surprise that many teachers try to minimise the amount of class time they spend on religious education. In doing so, they risk running foul of Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, which allows “religious institutions” (ie schools) to take “action which is reasonably necessary to prevent an employee or a prospective employee from undermining the religious ethos of the institution”.

Minister for Education Norma Foley will be aware of the INTO’s recent move to establish a union taskforce on faith formation and school patronage. She must finally engage with this issue by setting out clear timelines for the long-awaited citizens’ assembly on the future of education.

Momentum is building behind this issue, whether the Government chooses to recognise it or not.

Teachers are education professionals, not missionaries. It’s time our schools reflected that reality. – Yours, etc,

ALANA WILHELM,

Teacher Representative Education Equality,

Blessington,

Co Wicklow.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.rte.ie/news/education/2024/0430/1446434-esri-co-educational/

The study illustrated this tension by contrasting the comment of the school principal of one all-girls school with survey results from that school’s students.

The principal told researchers: "There is no appetite for it here. I'm not hearing students saying to me that they want to be in a mixed school."

However in that same school, 72% of students stated in the survey that they would prefer their school to be co-educational. Just 11% actively wanted it to remain single-sex.

Hotblack Desiato

Interesting but given the glacial state of progress so far, hopefully this isn't just another holding tactic. No way the meagre 400 multi-d primary school target by 2030 is going to be met.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/06/11/parents-to-be-polled-on-school-preferences-in-bid-to-accelerate-school-choice/

Parents of primary and preschool aged children will be invited to share their preferences on what type of school they want in their local area as part of “national conversation” on school choice.

The national poll, due to take place in the coming school year, will ask parents to state their preferences on school ethos (such as religious or multi denominational), gender mix (single sex or coeducational) and language (English-medium or Irish-medium).

While there were plans to poll parents on school ethos alone, Minister for Education Norma Foley said an expanded poll is being planned to paint a more accurate picture of parental demand for types of education.

It is unclear, however, how these parental preferences will translate into changes on the ground.

They can say that bit again!

robindch

Ten Commandments? Up you go!

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp66xdxj0l3o

Hotblack Desiato

You used to be able to rely on the Supreme Court throwing out that sort of crap once they got around to looking at it…

Hotblack Desiato

A rather fanciful article in the IT the other day defending the education status quo:

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/09/24/a-discriminatory-law-has-become-a-block-on-the-divestment-of-catholic-schools/

The ludicrious claim that the law is unfair to catholic schools really is a case of "When you're used to privilege, any move towards equality feels like oppression."

Education Equality took the author of this nonsense to task in the letters page:

Sir, – In Alan Hynes’s recent article “A discriminatory law has become a block on the divestment of Catholic schools” (Opinion & Analysis, September 24th), I note his advocacy for certain fundamental rights of parents and children as enshrined in human rights law and the Constitution.

I think we can all agree this is important in the discussion of Ireland’s education system.

As noted by Mr Hynes, under the Constitution, the State is obliged to provide public funding for primary school education and in doing so make it practically available to rights holders, ie parents and children.

While this is true, it is disingenuous to suggest that most parents have a true choice regarding the primary school their children will attend.

As 90 per cent of publicly funded primary schools are Catholic, most parents have no choice. While State-funded education is practically available to all, significant equality challenges exist.

To ensure equality of access, Section 11 of the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 was introduced. Mr Hynes’s argument that this is a barrier to divestment is absurd.

If the Catholic Education Partnership were truly in favour of divestment, why then did we not see more progress prior to the 2018 legislation?

Since the divestment programme began in 2012, only one to two schools have divested each year. His suggestion that publicly funded Catholic-ethos schools should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion in a post-divestment world contradicts his expressed commitment to human and constitutional rights.

With the church so entwined in education, the minimum that parents of non-Catholic children can demand in a Catholic-dominated primary school sphere is that their right pursuant to Article 44.2.4 of the Constitution “to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school” is upheld, a provision which Mr Hynes notably failed to mention in his discussion. – Yours, etc,

ALLISON MARTIN,

Children’s Rights Officer,

Education Equality,

Castletownshend,

Co Cork.

Hotblack Desiato

So basically we are pumping taxpayers' money into schools which we do not own, and don't even have any legal certainty that they will continue to be used as schools:

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0930/1472799-lack-of-legal-agreements-for-schools-on-non-state-land/

Four years after the Comptroller and Auditor General warned about the lack of legal agreements concerning schools on land not owned by the state, the C&AG says little progress has been made.

In it's report today the C&AG said the State has invested significant funds in the schools estate over many years, including in the 85% of schools that are located on lands not owned by the State

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122705488#Comment_122705488

Look on the bright side! The State gets the use of the site for free, indefinitely — not a trivial benefit when we consider land values for sites in residential neighbourhoods.

(SFAIK for many years now the standard funding agreement requires the building grant to be repaid if the site ceases to be available for the operation of a national school.)

smacl

Maybe we could get BAM to build a couple of new schools for us, I also know a lad out by Leinster house that can throw in a bike-shed or two for a small fee ;)

Hotblack Desiato

Land zoned for institutional / educational use isn't worth much.

Hotblack Desiato

Crappy article snipped and replaced with a better one:

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/10/08/its-common-knowledge-teachers-lie-about-their-faith-is-religion-a-barrier-to-getting-a-job-as-a-primary-teacher/

“The whole system rests on the idea that teachers are willing to uphold something they don’t believe – and many of us simply don’t,” she says.

“The principals can’t speak out because the patron is their boss. Our education system no longer represents the families it is there to serve. The heel-dragging won’t stop until the numbers opting out of religion outweigh those taking part.”

The bouncy castle types don't think they are doing any harm but they are the ones propping up the whole rotten edifice.

Peter Melrose is another primary teacher who says his job prospects are limited by the certificate. He was raised Catholic and says he reflected deeply on religion in his late 20s.

“I decided it was not for me; I did not believe,” he says. “As a teacher, I tried to avoid the Communion and Confirmation years. Primary teachers have a massive influence on children; they hang on our every word. I grew increasingly uncomfortable with telling children they should believe something I didn’t. Religion became a constant spectre over my shoulder.”

Catholic groups, however, see the requirements of the religious certificate in a much different light. As well as teaching about faith, they say it explores issues around inter-culturalism, religious diversity and the importance of promoting respect for all pupils.

Yeah right.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122735837#Comment_122735837

Is this not a bit contradictory? You're criticising the psychiatrist for enquiring about the patient's faith and at the same time saying that, if the client doesn't have faith in the psychiatrist, the psychiatrist is nothing.

If faith is that important, why shouldn't it be explored in tne context of the psychiatrist-patient relationship? Why does any enquiry into faith automatically destroy faith?

Hotblack Desiato

Trust in a medical professional's professionalism is not 'faith', it's based on evidence and experience.

I edited out that article before seeing your reply by the way.

PixelCrafter

Article 42 of the constitution always reads to me as a bit of an incoherent mess that isn’t compatible with the modern world.

Children should have an absolute right to free, education, that’s not discriminatory.

“3     1° The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State.”

The state effectively did and does just that and has done since its foundation. It just hides behind the notion that you’re free to build your own school or home school your children, which frankly isn’t feasible unless you’re a teacher, and it’s certainly not feasible beyond very basic primary school unless you’ve huge resources and are able to pay for home tuition.

It also opens a vulnerability to kids being removed from mainstream education by parents who are in religious cults, and the current status quo makes it very hard for the state to tell someone that you are forced to educate your kids in the local Catholic school, as it’s highly discriminatory to make that obligatory.

What worries me about education here is that the school is a fundamental part of social life for both kids and parents. 90% of our schools are Catholic and when you add in the other religious ones, it leaves you with very few schools that aren’t actually run by religious institutions. As society inevitably becomes more diverse, both due to people becoming less and less religious and because of migration, it just means a huge % of kids are basically tolerated and accommodated, rather than being fully welcome as part of a community in a local school. That’s where Ireland is storing up future major social problems and people feeling not part of society - and also further fragmentation of the school system as other religious groups will reasonably want to do exactly what the Catholic Church, and the rather small % of various other religious organisations have been doing.

Ireland also has a really serious history of sectarianism. It’s become less relevant in the republic, but it’s still there. It’s a very much live issue in the north, but we seem to just think it’s totally fine to maintain schools on the basis of institutionalising religious divisions.

We aren’t willing to address this stuff because of institutional deference to the church and because of huge inertia, but I guarantee you in decades to come we’ll be looking back on how this era as having failed a lot of people who are kids now.

We shouldn’t be locking ourselves into a model of education from a century ago that looks more like it was designed in the days of Oliver Twist.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122736646#Comment_122736646

If it involves credibility, then it's faith.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122739229#Comment_122739229

In my opinion, unevidenced articles of faith, such as religious belief, and faith supported by hard evidence, are not in any way comparable. For example, if I to go to a doctor with a serious illness, it is on the basis of receiving treatment based proven medical diagnosis, treatment techniques, and tested approved medicines all delivered by a qualified expert. I have faith in this process because there is overwhelming evidence suggesting a good likelihood of a positive outcome. If the doctor turned out to be a religious faith healer, homeopath etc.. where there was no such evidence that the treatment would succeed, I would rightly feel very aggrieved.

Unevidenced faith can often have zero or even negative value, being about as useful in many medical contexts as homeopathic contraceptives. While I realise that those with genuine religious beliefs can draw solace from the those beliefs in times of stress, it can also be a source of despondency for those raised with religion to come to the conclusion they've been sold a lie, often by their nearest and dearest. Asking someone if they "have any faith", as opposed say to asking "are you religious", is unfortunate as it presumes religiosity, i.e. the faith here is implicitly religious belief. Its a bit like asking a young woman if she has a boyfriend without first determining if she is even straight. Fine for your granny, not so much for a psychiatrist dealing with the sensitivities of their patient.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122735837#Comment_122735837

The pressure on lay teachers to promote a faith and ethos they don't subscribe is an appalling state of affairs for state funded employees. To have to lie about their beliefs to get the job in the first place in this day and age frankly beggars belief. A point to raise with the politicians who will shortly again be knocking on our doors hoping to secure our votes.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122739451#Comment_122739451

Remember where I came in on this: Hotblack's post, in which he said:

My psychiatrist once asked me if I had any faith. I think she was getting desperate, given my slide into existential nihilism had me begging her to tell me what the point of anything was. The question, “Do you have any faith?” took me aback. What did she mean, I asked. She wondered if I believed in anything.

to the likes of me that's an instant loss of their credibilty, and without that they're nothing.

Nothing there about unevidenced faith, or about religious faith; just any faith of any kind.

What distinguishes faith from other forms of belief is not that it's unevidenced; just like any other form of belief, faith may be more or less well-evidenced, and it may be evidenced with objective, demonstrable facts or subjective experience; the latter kind of evidence will weigh more heavily for the person who has had the experience than for the person who has not, obviously.

What distinguishes faith from other forms of belief is not the quality of the evidence that supports it, but the degree of trust that you place in it — this is not something you merely believe; it is something you are prepared to act on, to be influenced by in your decisions about how to behave, about risks you take, about the life-choices you make.

Since we all make life choices, take risks, etc, often in the face of uncertaintly or limited information, we all — whewtehr we acknowledge it or not — have faith in something, or some things. That faith is sometimes not as well-evidenced as we might like.

The notion that a psychiatrist who seeks to explore how his patient deals with this thereby loses all credibility is just bizarre.

Hotblack Desiato

Subjective experience is not evidence.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122743316#Comment_122743316

Sure it is. For instance, my own faith (or lack of faith) in my doctor or my dentist will be largely shaped by my experience of being treated by them. My own understanding of my romantic relationship with my partner is likewise the result of my experience of being in that relationship. Etc, etc. These are all subjective experiences; I am the only person who has experienced them, and they can't be replicated for others.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122743301#Comment_122743301

My understanding of this question, which I'm guessing is same as Hotblack's given their post, was the psychiatrist was implicitly referring to religious faith in this case, as opposed to say faith in the medical system, the government or Ireland winning the world cup. In countries such as Ireland with a strongly religious history, when someone asks if you have 'faith' outside of a specific context, I would be of the opinion that we can safely understand this to relate to religious belief. If we look at the Merriam-Webster definitions of faith we see the following

1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty
lost faith in the company's president
b(1)
: fidelity to one's promises
(2)
: sincerity of intentions
acted in good faith

2 a(1)
: belief and trust in and loyalty to God
(2)
: belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion
b(1)
: firm belief in something for which there is no proof
clinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return
(2)
: complete trust

3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction
especially : a system of religious beliefs
the Protestant faith

Of the three definitions above, the first and third demand a qualifying context, so asking the question "Do you have faith" in the absence of context can be reasonably interpreted as implying religious faith.

I agree with your point that we can consider faith to have similar qualities to trust but similarly, we can place our trust in that which is demonstrably trustworthy to a known extent, or that which lacks any such support. An atheist might consider religious faith to be blind faith as it lacks evidential support. The counter argument is that a religious person who feels there faith has helped them through difficult times or otherwise enriched their life could claim their faith is well founded through experience. This, in my opinion, is what the psychiatrist was driving at but was wrong-footed and insensitive as it started from false assumptions.

Peregrinus

Hotblack tells us the context in which the question was asked; it was his "slide into existential nihilism". In that context, I would understand a question about faith as referring to faith in anything at all that might give life some meaning or purpose.

I agree with your point that we can consider faith to have similar qualities to trust but similarly, we can place our trust in that which is demonstrably trustworthy to a known extent, or that which lacks any such support. An atheist might consider religious faith to be blind faith as it lacks evidential support. The counter argument is that a religious person who feels there faith has helped them through difficult times or otherwise enriched their life could claim their faith is well founded through experience. This, in my opinion, is what the psychiatrist was driving at but was wrong-footed and insensitive as it started from false assumptions.

I wouldn't say that faith has "similar qualities" to trust; I'd say that trust is an essential component of faith. For example, I might believe that the moon is made of green cheese, or I might believe the opposite, but in neither case would the belief be described as a faith, because it doesn't affect any choices that I make about how to act or how to live. Conversely my belief that a surgeon is competent and skilful, or that a prostatectomy will be curative of my cancer, are matters of faith if I rely on those beliefs in accepting surgery. And somebody who loudly professes orthodox Christian beliefs but in fact makes choices that prioritise earning money and pursuing social status over loving their neighbour and bringing about the kingdom of God apparently doesn't have Christian faith because he doesn't trust his beliefs enough to act in reliance on them. (He may have faith in wewalth or power or status, though; he apparently trusts them to assuage his existential fears.)

Given that understanding of faith (which is a perfectly orthodox and coherent understanding) the psychiatrist's question makes complete sense, at least as the opening gambit for a conversation about why his patient is sliding into existential nihilism, or wht that looks like to the patient. if I understand the concept correctly, the existintial nihilist sees nothing in life to give it meaning or value and (if he's seeking psychiatric help in connection with this) that is making him very unhappy; he feels the need for something to give his existence meaning or value. In other words, he wants to have faith; he wants there to be something worth making choices for. That could be something religious, but there's absolutely no reason why it has to be.