A Supreme Court judgement in the UK today is of great relevance to the Irish education system, and reinforces the points made by Atheist Ireland in a recent article The right to an objective education goes beyond avoiding ‘faith formation‘.
The UK Supreme Court case was about the teaching of religious education and the provision of collective worship in a school in Northern Ireland. Both sides were appealing aspects of a Court of Appeal judgment.
The parents taking the case were non-religious, and the case was taken in conjunction with the Humanists in Northern Ireland. Darragh Mackin from Phoenix Law represented the parents.
The case concerned whether religious education and collective worship provided in the school breaches the rights of a child, and the child’s parents, under Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention in conjunction with Article 9 of the Convention.
The Supreme Court held that the religious education syllabus in Northern Ireland schools pursued an aim of indoctrination by not respecting parents’ convictions. The religious education syllabus was not an objective course about religions and beliefs, and it was not conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner.
Another issue was whether religious education and worship was confined to the religion class and assemblies. The court found that it was not.
The parents also said that, as the exemption scheme did not provide any alternative educational provision, an undue burden was placed on them in conjunction with the School to devise alternative arrangements for their child ‘prior’ to her withdrawal.
The parents considered that devising alternative arrangements in conjunction with the School not only placed an undue burden on them but also had a deterrent effect. The parents decided not to remove their child from religious education because of the undue burden placed on them.
The court held that:-
“Fourthly, there is another feature of the duty to take the utmost care identified in major principle (i) above. Utmost care requires the Department to provide some assistance to individual schools in relation to the difficult practical questions as to: (a) the alternative arrangements to be made for pupils who are withdrawn from religious education and/or collective worship; and (b) the procedures to be followed by the schools in conjunction with the parents when seeking to identify appropriate alternative arrangements.”
This case is a significant boost for those of us in Ireland seeking an education for our children that is based on human rights law, and that respects all parents’ convictions.
Atheist Ireland will continue to campaign for an education for our children that is objective, critical and pluralistic and free from indoctrination.