Another survey — but still no change for children who opt out of religious instruction
This survey allows the State to appear responsive while avoiding the hard question: why is religious instruction still embedded in the timetable and curriculum of State-funded schools? File photo: iStock
More than two years ago, the Department of Education announced, to much fanfare, that it would launch the largest-ever survey of parents on the issue of religious patronage in schools. That survey landed this week.
It consists of just three short questions, takes mere seconds to fill in and requires only an Eircode to complete it. On the surface, this looks like progress. Consultation sounds good — it suggests listening, engagement, reform.
But for the countless children across Ireland who opted out of religious instruction in around 3,000 Irish primary schools, my own included, this is yet another can-kicking exercise that delays the real change they urgently need.
We’ve been here before: forums, surveys, reviews, working groups, and soon a convention. All promising inclusion, yet none addressing the daily exclusion of children who do not take part in religious instruction.
While parents fill out the survey, giving their opinion on whether these children deserve to have their rights upheld, the same children continue to sit through religious lessons, colouring or reading quietly at the back of the classroom absorbing everything, or sent to corridors and corners while their classmates prepare for sacraments — or tagging along, again and again, to sit at the back of the church as the others rehearse.
In my own children’s case, in the past month alone they have sat quietly in class while their peers prayed twice a day, watched a video of Jesus walking on water and wrote an essay on why they love God. That isn’t inclusion. It’s neglect, and it’s a breach of their constitutional and human rights.
If the department were serious about inclusion and equality, it would stop asking what parents think and start acting on what we already know. We know that the vast majority of Irish primary schools remain under Catholic patronage.
We know that religious instruction and sacramental preparation take place during the school day and consume almost as much curricular time as history, geography and science combined.
We know that non-religious marriages now far outnumber Catholic marriages.
We know that around half of all primary school teachers do not believe in a personal God (according to research commissioned by the Catholic Church itself) and just 4% of them think they should be leading pupils in sacrament preparation.
We know that Ireland is an outlier internationally in terms of the dominance of religious faith in our primary schools.
We know that this system discriminates against families and teachers who are not Catholic, and who don’t conform to the school’s ethos.
We also know that the Government’s slow and limited “divestment” process — whereby a mere handful of schools have transferred to new patrons — will do nothing to help the countless non-Catholic children still sitting in Catholic classrooms, quietly opted out but still excluded every single day.
Another survey does nothing to change that reality. It allows the State to appear responsive while avoiding the hard question: why is religious instruction still embedded in the timetable and curriculum of State-funded schools?
There is a simple solution. Religious instruction (faith formation) and sacramental preparation should take place outside school hours on an opt-in basis.
That single change would respect every child’s constitutional right to freedom of religion and conscience, and their right to attend a State-funded school without being required to attend religious instruction. It would ensure that all children and all teachers, whatever their background, are treated equally and respectfully within the school day.
It would also allow Catholic families to opt their children into a dedicated after-school faith formation class without impinging on the constitutional and human rights of other children and teachers who do not share that faith.
Education Equality has been campaigning on this issue for more than a decade. We’ve met ministers, shared case studies, and highlighted the human impact of a system that quietly excludes.
Education Equality regularly receives deeply upsetting stories from parents and teachers. We hear from parents of opt-out children who are forced to bless themselves, administered ashes by visiting clergy, and ushered up the aisle to take communion against their parents’ express wishes.
Some children have even been told not to come to school while their classmates attend a religious retreat. We hear from teachers forced to promote and teach a religious faith they do not themselves believe out of fear of losing their livelihood.
The department is well aware of these stories — we handed former minister for education Norma Foley a dossier of them last year. Yet each new initiative, like this survey, simply kicks the can further down the road.
If the Government is truly committed to equality and inclusion in education, it needs to move beyond surveys and start legislating for it. Every day without reform is another day that children are left out, literally and figuratively, in Irish classrooms.
- Aoife Cassidy is communications officer at Education Equality, educationequality.ie
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