Funferal

Religion in Irish schools

Several groups have recently called for changes in the manner in which the Irish school system is structured – first the Irish Principal’s Network, and then on Friday, Pat Rabbitte in an article in the Irish Independent. As Rabbitte notes:

More than 90 per cent of primary schools are run by the Catholic Church, and many of the others are run by other denominations. Yet, only two in five Irish people attend mass once a week, and only one in four of under-35s do so.

The structure of Irish schooling is somewhat unusual, and quite interesting in origin. When the British were bringing in primary-level schooling in the mid- to late-1800s the proposal was to have state-run schools. However, the Catholic church in Ireland objected to this, on the basis that the majority religion in Ireland was Catholicism, but the established religion in the UK, of which Ireland was at the time a part, was of course the Protestant Anglican church. The solution that eventually emerged, and that dominates the Irish system to this day, is that while teacher salaries are (in the main) paid by the state, and the state provides funding for the building and maintenance of schools, the schools themselves are owned by ‘patrons’ that are, for the most part, Catholic bishops, with the local parish priest generally running the school’s board of management. (It’s only relatively recently that the need to include parents and staff on the boards was codified.)
In the relatively homogenous culture that Ireland used to be, this was more generally accepted than is now the case. We have had the emergence of multi-denominational education groups in recent years, which have had some success, though facing considerable obstacles – including the need to find an acceptable ‘patron’ for the school, and frequent opposition from Catholic authorities who, for instance, refuse to countenance turning over now-disused school buildings (paid for with public funds) to these new (homeless) schools.
Rabbitte refers in passing to the manner in which the Church is leveraging their previous state subsidy to exert power in contemporary society, but his focus is on the impact on individual parents and pupils:

This is not a major issue if there are places to spare. But what if the school is oversubscribed? The present system allows for places to be allocated on the basis of religious affiliation and could result in a child loosing a place either because her parents are non-practising Catholics who did not choose to have her baptised, or because she is of a different religion entirely.

This is a growing problem, not only as society becomes more secular, but as Ireland welcomes, through immigration, a growing number of people whose religion is other than Catholic – the Muslim faith is seeing substantial growth in Ireland, for example.
Now the Minister for Education has responded. Not by considering the needs of those of minority faiths, or considering the state subsidy of (predominately) the Catholic church (and of other groups of long standing in Ireland). Instead she has proposed that:

arents should be involved in preparing their children for Communion and Confirmation in partnership with schools.

Call me crazy, but as an agnostic [though not yet a parent], how does this address the difficulties of those with no religion (3.5% in 2002, up from 1.9% in 1991), or, for example, Muslims (0.49% in 2002 – up from 0.1% in 1991)? [I should note that a further 2% of the population declined to answer the question in 2002, down slightly from 2.36% of the population in 1991.] As we prepare for the 2006 census (April 23rd), where a safe prediction is increases in those not covered by the larger, traditional, religious labels, it is increasingly unacceptable that the Minister for Education should respond to calls for renewed structures that take account of the needs of an increasingly diverse society by calling on parents to take part in preparations for First Communion.