Education Minister's new plan would strengthen school ethos and discrimination

Michael Nugent

The Minister for Education’s plan to change the Baptism rule, but strengthen school ethos, will actually strengthen religious discrimination in Irish schools.

What seems to be the best of the four options in the plan, removing the Baptism rule completely, is actually the worst, as the Minister says that “Under this last option religious schools could require parents or students to indicate support for the school’s religious ethos.”

So removing the Baptism rule completely would mean that minority belief parents must support the evangelising of their children into the Catholic faith. It would merely give children of minority belief families equal access to being discriminated against within the schools, which is where the real problem is, and would give the Catholic Church access to more minority belief children to evangelise into Catholicism.

The other three of the Minister’s discussion options (catchment area, nearest school and quotas) would merely fine-tune the religious discrimination in access, and would still result in children being refused access to their local school because of the religious or nonreligious beliefs of their parents.

The Minister says this is to protect the rights of minority faiths to run their own schools, but that approach just legitimises even more religious discrimination. Currently, Church of Ireland schools discriminate against Evangelicals, and Islamic schools discriminate against Ahmadi Muslims. Every minority family and child has the same right to be treated equally. These plans will not do that.

The only positive aspect is that the Government has dropped its position that this change would be unconstitutional. But none of the four options address the fact that ten human rights bodies of the United Nations and Council of Europe have told Ireland that we are breaching the rights of atheist, secular and minority faith families inside our schools, and not just in access. Every family and child has the same human right to be treated equally by the State.

The only way to do that is through a State-funded network of secular schools, that do not promote either religion or atheism, but that teach children about different religions and beliefs in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner.

Irish Times report
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/bruton-set-to-pledge-end-of-baptism-barrier-in-schools-1.2937809

RTE Report
http://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0116/845185-school-admissions-plan/

Atheist Ireland analysis
http://www.teachdontpreach.ie/2017/01/ministers-plan-deeply-flawed/

lazygal

Is there any sign of a similar change being proposed for second level schools? We have secured places for our children for primary school but I expect to face into another battle for places in eight years' time.

smacl

lazygal wrote: »

Is there any sign of a similar change being proposed for second level schools? We have secured places for our children for primary school but I expect to face into another battle for places in eight years' time.

Are second level schools looking for baptismal certs or preferring Catholics? I know it wasn't the case for our eldest when she decided she wanted to go to the same all girls Catholic school her friends were going to. Our youngest was lucky enough to be in one of the first years of an educate together secondary, which I would heartily recommend if it is an option that becomes available to you. Religious instruction aside, our experience is the ET approach to education is considerably more up to date, rounded, and relevant to the needs of the student than that offered elsewhere.

lazygal

smacl wrote: »

Are second level schools looking for baptismal certs or preferring Catholics? I know it wasn't the case for our eldest when she decided she wanted to go to the same all girls Catholic school her friends were going to. Our youngest was lucky enough to be in one of the first years of an educate together secondary, which I would heartily recommend if it is an option that becomes available to you. Religious instruction aside, our experience is the ET approach to education is considerably more up to date, rounded, and relevant to the needs of the student than that offered elsewhere.

It's a question of feeder schools. The ET is a feeder for our preferred second level but first in order of preference are protestant children and those who attended protestant feeder schools. Some 10 children didn't get places there last year because they were lower down the list. Then some other religious schools ask for baptism certs. I don't really want them going to a single sex school for myriad reasons, especially when religion will still influence their education in these schools. There's little choice for non religious education unless we send them to a private school.

smacl

lazygal wrote: »

It's a question of feeder schools. The ET is a feeder for our preferred second level but first in order of preference are protestant children and those who attended protestant feeder schools. Some 10 children didn't get places there last year because they were lower down the list. Then some other religious schools ask for baptism certs. I don't really want them going to a single sex school for myriad reasons, especially when religion will still influence their education in these schools. There's little choice for non religious education unless we send them to a private school.

We were in a similar enough situation for our eldest (now in 5th year) and had decided to stump up for a fee paying mixed school when she announced she really wanted to go to the Catholic all girls school. While we weren't particularly happy with it, we felt that it was her choice. The religion thing isn't that much of a issue as it is basically something she doesn't care much about one way or the other, and the bulk of the students have no interest in religion either. The same sex thing became more of an issue for the senior cycle, as the subjects offered tended to be restrictive. She had planned on honours maths, applied maths, physics and accounting for the leaving and has ended up having to ditch accounting and do applied maths as an extra curricular activity in the local boys school. The most heavily subscribed leaving cert subjects in her school were home economics, biology, and art, to the extent that everyone had to take up at least one of these. While theoretically all girls schools, all boys schools, and mixed schools have the same curriculum, our experience has been that it is not necessarily the case. Hopefully things will improve further over time.

byhookorbycrook

Catchment area will mean the schools such as ET and Gaelscoileanna who draw pupils from a wide area would suffer. If the only school in the catchment area is one you don't want your child to attend, what happens then?Half baked ideas, not thought true at all. Typical DES.

recedite

The "Catchment Areas" concept is indeed the devil in the detail.
Usually it is a religious concept which corresponds with some notion of parish boundaries. But RC boundaries are different to CoI boundaries.

The Church of Recedite has set its catchment area as The Whole World. This allows me to give priority to my followers, no matter where they live. Sadly membership comprises only 5 ewes at the moment, but just remember; those sheep have priority over you.

If secular catchment areas were to be set by Dept of Education, these could have a value for prioritising primary school admissions. But it would have to be one single set of catchment areas set out on a publicly available map (similar to electoral areas). If there was an ET school and a RC school in a town, then the boundary of the catchment area would lie halfway between them. If a new school was built in the middle, then the catchment area of each school would shrink accordingly. Nobody would be obliged to go to their nearest school, but they would have a slight advantage there.

That's not what Bruton has in mind though. He would allow each patron to set their own catchment areas. All overlapping each other.

Admission to publicly funded secondary schools is best decided by giving priority to nominated local "Feeder Schools", not by catchment areas. This system is already widespread among the newly built secondary schools, whose "patrons" were required to agree to it before being awarded the patronage.

Bristolscale7

These proposals are so clearly lacking and yet Equate Ireland was out supporting the minister. What a useless shower of c***s.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

If secular catchment areas were to be set by Dept of Education, these could have a value for prioritising primary school admissions. But it would have to be one single set of catchment areas set out on a publicly available map (similar to electoral areas). If there was an ET school and a RC school in a town, then the boundary of the catchment area would lie halfway between them. If a new school was built in the middle, then the catchment area of each school would shrink accordingly. Nobody would be obliged to go to their nearest school, but they would have a slight advantage there.

What you're talking about there is creating non-overlapping catchment areas using a voronoi tesselation centred around each school. What would be more likely is to use centre points of population density, such that in a single catchment area you could still have more than one school. Within a catchment area you could then still have an element of parental choice, with a simple lottery system used where a given school within the catchment area is oversubscribed.

BlinkingLights

Honestly it's long past time people just start lawyering up.

The situation is totally unacceptable and needs to have the constitutional situation tested.

It's just the usual rearranging the deck chairs approach by the Irish government who seem to be unable to even recognise how serious this problem is for families all over the country or how damaging it is to Ireland's position as an open economy.

It's like a set of policies you'd expect to be coming from a far right government with a xenophobic outlook. Nothing seems to change just excuse after excuse for why it can't be changed and why families who aren't religious or are of a different religion should have to just put up with lack of access to services they pay for and are allegedly constitutionally entitled to use.

Hotblack Desiato

smacl wrote: »

What you're talking about there is creating non-overlapping catchment areas using a voronoi tesselation centred around each school.

Interesting...

Voronoi diagrams: simple but powerful

Another practical problem is to choose a location for a new service, such as a school

Are we being watched?

smacl

Interesting article, but he's not quite right when he says;

Another practical problem is to choose a location for a new service, such as a school, which is as far as possible from existing schools while still serving the maximum number of families. A Voronoi diagram can be used to find the largest empty circle amid a collection of points, giving the ideal location for the new school. Of course, numerous parameters other than distance must be considered, but access time is often the critical factor.

This would assume families are equally distributed geographically, which they very rarely are. By the above logic we should be building more schools in rural Mayo and Leitrim. Voronoi tessellations based on existing school location are of little benefit in picking the a location for a new school as they take no account of demand, which is a function of the number of children looking for a school place in a given area less the number of school places already available. Maybe another article on density clustering and density reachability is in order

recedite

The pure mathematicians among us may be looking at this the wrong way round.
First, the trigger for a new school is oversubscription of existing ones locally.

Second, the location is based on availability of a suitable site, most likely in the area of population growth (outer suburbs)

Third, the Voronoi diagram can be brought to bear. But at this stage the only variable left is the catchment area, so it can be used to neatly define this in a fair and entirely objective way.

Having said that, it works best where all schools are roughly similar or equivalent. If one school is say, an Islamic school, it can hardly be allowed to influence the catchment areas of people who would not be using it.

In that sense, it is important for the state to fund only schools that a) treat all citizens equally and b) are suitable for all citizens to attend.
Beyond that, a certain amount of diversity of management "ethos" may be beneficial as a form of competition. But only a small amount.

BlinkingLights

What you're forgetting in that model is what the purpose of the structures of education in this state is.
The fact that they provide children and families with access to academic education is only a part of their stated function.

In the past they served as part of the early state's 'nation building' agenda which was to revive Irish national identity and the Irish language, music and culture and reiterate our differences to the old regime of the UK. An understandably goal in a new state.

Unfortunately, the early state also seemed to continuously and very deliberately confuse Irish identity and Catholic identity and that became embedded in that same school system.

The result is that you've a school system that sees its part of its core purpose as 'faith formation' and that is very apparently willing to use its position to evangelise, regardless of what the objectives of the authors of the constitution may have been.

We haven't really addressed that issue or had a serious reform of the school system to make it reflect the rest of what evolved into a modern, open and very democratic republic. Instead, we have been stuck with this legacy school system that should have been left in the 1920s.

Until we address this situation, we still have one foot in 2017 and the other in 1917.

recedite

I don't think that reinforcing the "Irish Catholic" nation was ever a stated aim, but certainly it became a de facto aim of most schools.
But it should be remembered that the state also facilitated the 2% or so of the population who were CoI religion, and in some cases (special bus services) gave them extra special treatment. Therefore it could claim that "equality" was being respected, and that when the state funded the Christian Brothers type schools it was not "endowing" the 98% who followed one particular religion.

The problem for the politicians now of course, is that a large number of citizens, possibly even the majority, don't identify with the aims of either the RCC or the CoI.

BlinkingLights

Well, when you look at the primary school rules that were in force from the 1960s onwards, it set out the priority as being religious education above all else and specifically mentions "God" etc etc.

It was all about "faith formation"

There was absolutely no notion that someone wouldn't fit into that mould.

The issue though is I'm not sure why the state is so wedded to these old systems for. They're an anachronism and they should be able to move on.

recedite

BlinkingLights wrote: »

It was all about "faith formation"

I agree. I'm just pointing out that the "stated" aim of state funding was something different. No endowment of religion. Equality for all.
Its almost Orwellian when you doublethink about it.

BlinkingLights

recedite wrote: »

I agree. I'm just pointing out that the "stated" aim of state funding was something different. No endowment of religion. Equality for all.
Its almost Orwellian when you doublethink about it.

There's no question but that it was an attempt at social engineering and even some kind of social cleansing if you add in the widespread use of institutions, industrial schools, magdalene laundries etc for anyone who stepped out of line on any moral issue or challenged authority.

I honestly think we owe it to ourselves as a nation to come up with a better and more inclusive education system that is not still stuck in the legacy of all of that stuff.

It really is time that we drew a line under the history and decide what kind of education system we want and are willing to pay for, rather than just being permanently locked in some kind of deference to the path.

Elemonator

Understand that Bunreacht na hEireann allows for discrimination in schools because of the strong right to religious freedom . Take up the fight there.

BlinkingLights

It's not often I quote such high quality publications, but this Waterford Whispers article makes a very good point:

Colleges Confirm You Don’t Need To Be Baptised To Attend

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2017/01/24/colleges-confirm-you-dont-need-to-be-baptised-to-attend/

Waterford Whispers wrote:

IN a move third level institutions will hope helps to drive more interest in courses, the Nation’s colleges have revealed that you don’t even have to be baptised to attend.

“We just know a few people whose primary and secondary school education which has been guided solely by religious orientation may be fearful it is the same case with third level education, but we take heathens too,” one college head honcho shared with WWN, “the vast majority of us are sound like that”.

(See link)

Often satire really gets to the point!

Hotblack Desiato

Elemonator wrote: »

Understand that Bunreacht na hEireann allows for discrimination in schools because of the strong right to religious freedom

Denying religious freedom in order to protect it - that's reminiscent of the old 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it.'

yoganinja

It's 7(3)c of the Equal status act that allows religious institutions exemptions to anti discrimination legislation to "protect their ethos"

But you're right, changes to the constitution would also be helpful - it is still up for debate though if they would be necessary to change current status quo

Elemonator

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Denying religious freedom in order to protect it - that's reminiscent of the old 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it.'

Discrimination is permissible where it is necessary to the overall aim of practicing religion.

It would take me too long to type out the reasons why its still around. Personally I think its bogus, religion should be totally removed from schools. I think we are getting there though.

Full explanation: http://corkonlinelawreview.com/editions/2008/2008_COLR_28.pdf

recedite

Elemonator wrote: »

Discrimination is permissible where it is necessary to the overall aim of practicing religion.
Full explanation: http://corkonlinelawreview.com/editions/2008/2008_COLR_28.pdf

That statement not strictly true. If you read your own link, you'll find it says

...it is not obviously necessary, in order to uphold the free practice of religion, that a person should be able to attend a publicly-funded school which excluded non-coreligionist staff or children.

And not being necessary, it should not be permissible.

But sadly, it is permissible for a religious school to discriminate on the basis of religion. Such discrimination is "not discrimination" according to the doublespeak of the notorious section 7 of the (Un) Equal Status Act.
So it is this piece of legislation that is really at fault, not the constitution. Having said that the constitution should be updated and clarified because its a bit vague on the whole thing.

Elemonator

recedite wrote: »

That statement not strictly true. If you read your own link, you'll find it says

And not being necessary, it should not be permissible.

But sadly, it is permissible for a religious school to discriminate on the basis of religion. Such discrimination is "not discrimination" according to the doublespeak of the notorious section 7 of the (Un) Equal Status Act.
So it is this piece of legislation that is really at fault, not the constitution. Having said that the constitution should be updated and clarified because its a bit vague on the whole thing.

I think its bogus for the reasons you just stated. Just wasn't bothered typing it out

Hotblack Desiato

Doesn't the ECHR take precedence over the Constitution anyway?

recedite

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Doesn't the ECHR take precedence over the Constitution anyway?

It does.

BlinkingLights

But what about Irish exceptionalism?

Surely we're magic and special and our school system is perfect and anyone who says it isn't is a big interfering ninny?

We couldn't possibly be committing fundamental human rights violations because - emm something about us being all cute and great craic all together and that isn't possible here.

And sure aren't the nuns great!? Sure if it wasn't for us giving the nuns the money to educate us we would never have known anything

They've never done anything other than wonderful stuff (other than the Magdalene laundries and forced adoptions but sure the less said about that the better!) and.thr Christian Brothers and they way they'd chase you around with a big stick - great craic altogether.

Arcade_Tryer

BlinkingLights wrote: »

There's no question but that it was an attempt at social engineering and even some kind of social cleansing if you add in the widespread use of institutions, industrial schools, magdalene laundries etc for anyone who stepped out of line on any moral issue or challenged authority.

I honestly think we owe it to ourselves as a nation to come up with a better and more inclusive education system that is not still stuck in the legacy of all of that stuff.

It really is time that we drew a line under the history and decide what kind of education system we want and are willing to pay for, rather than just being permanently locked in some kind of deference to the path.

There is an argument to be made that throughout the 20th century the Irish people were complicit and willing in their absolute subjugation to the Catholic Church.

Church attendance has no doubt fallen during the last few decades, but Census results still reveal that the vast majority of Irish citizens consider themselves Catholic. As a society we are still complicit in the control exerted by the church.

The issue becomes one of separation of church and state. Ireland has never claimed to be a fully secular state, and the constitution certainly does not support one. So as long as Ireland considers itself a Catholic country, it's going to be a long and continuing struggle to break the ties between church and state in what was, and according to census results still is, a predominantly Catholic country.

Until the constitution is changed to recognise separation of church and state, support for ending religious ethos in state schools and other areas of public life could well be deemed undemocratic and expressly against the wishes of the citizens of Ireland.

recedite

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

Until the constitution is changed to recognise separation of church and state, support for ending religious ethos in state schools and other areas of public life could well be deemed undemocratic and expressly against the wishes of the citizens of Ireland.

Right, but the EU is not necessarily democratic, and as mentioned the ECHR has precedence over our domestic laws. The question is whether anyone will take a case to them, and whether they will feel bold enough in the current times to challenge the fundamentals of the education system in a (albeit small) member state.

BlinkingLights

recedite wrote: »

Right, but the EU is not necessarily democratic, and as mentioned the ECHR has precedence over our domestic laws. The question is whether anyone will take a case to them, and whether they will feel bold enough in the current times to challenge the fundamentals of the education system in a (albeit small) member state.

The courts in general aren't democratic. I mean, when's the last time you elected a judge?

Hotblack Desiato

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

There is an argument to be made that throughout the 20th century the Irish people were complicit and willing in their absolute subjugation to the Catholic Church.

Indeed, see article linked in my post here.

Church attendance has no doubt fallen during the last few decades, but Census results still reveal that the vast majority of Irish citizens consider themselves Catholic.

Yes but is there any real significance in that? Anyone who was baptised can tick that, and many will for that reason alone. It's certainly no basis for maintaining a discriminatory public policy.

So as long as Ireland considers itself a Catholic country, it's going to be a long and continuing struggle to break the ties between church and state in what was, and according to census results still is, a predominantly Catholic country.

It's not a catholic country (the Vatican is), it's a country with a lot of catholics in it.
But a lot of them are cultural catholics and pretty weak ones at that. Ticking a box just because you were baptised when you don't attend church and don't agree with church doctrines?

Until the constitution is changed to recognise separation of church and state, support for ending religious ethos in state schools and other areas of public life could well be deemed undemocratic and expressly against the wishes of the citizens of Ireland.

Separation of church and state was the subject of a huge number of submissions to the previous constitutional convention when they were looking for an additional subject to take on - but these were ignored.

Democracy is not the point here. Hitler was elected, so was Putin (both went on to prevent their removal by election, but nonetheless they were appointed through relatively free elections.) Democracy can only guarantee the majority will (usually) get its way. It can not and does not guarantee that the rights of minorities will not be abused by the majority.

That's why the concept of human rights was devised.

Human rights are often not democratic e.g. the majority of people in a muslim country may well be in agreement with homosexuals being hanged, so in pure democratic terms it should be permissible - but in reality it's a horrific abuse of human rights.