Atheist Ireland has made the following submission to the NCCA Consultation on the Draft Primary Curriculum Specifications. Introduction This submission focuses on two areas of the draft specifications: Social and Environmental Education (Geography and History) Wellbeing (Physical Education and Social, Personal and Health Education) Both...
In February 2018 the School Governance Section of the Dept of Education issued Circular Letter 0013/2018. Circular Letters are ‘policy’; the purpose of the policy was to oblige ETBs to offer students, who are not taking religion, another subject. At the time we were told...
The state pays out approx 10 million a year for mainly catholic chaplains in ETB schools (there are some COI chaplains). Chaplains are paid by the state to help Catholic parents with the religious formation of their children. We know this because there was a...
The phrase ‘faith formation’ in schools is not in the Constitution. Whether you refer to faith formation classes, or faith formation in the general atmosphere of the school, there is simply no Article in our Constitution that uses the term ‘faith formation’. It is not...
The Irish National Teachers Association has voted to lobby to remove a religious education qualification that is required by all teachers who wish to teach in Catholic primary schools. They will also form a task force to look at the future of primary school patronage....
The recent referendums have shown that words in the constitution matter. The Supreme Court has found that children have a Constitutional right to not attend any course in religious instruction. The Supreme Court also said that this right is based on the conscience of parents....
Opening up 400 multi denominational schools throughout the country will never achieve pluralism in education. The policy of successive governments is to segregate children in some areas of the country on the basis of their parents’ religion. Even if the state opened up 400 multi...
The Department of Eduction is continuing the fiction that the government is transferring patronage of Catholic primary schools in any meaningful way. The Department is also complicating the matter by saying that parents of pupils at Catholic primary schools are to be surveyed to assess...
In Ireland, religious discrimination in education has become part of our culture. That is because of the deference of successive governments to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has no issue with discriminating against minorities on the basis of religion in order to control the...
Atheist Ireland met the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation this week about religious discrimination in Irish schools against students and teachers, and how the INTO can help to counter that discrimination. We discussed the recent UNCRC Concluding Observations to Ireland about the rights of the child,...