Thoughts on the Motions on Religion in Primary Schools
Yesterday the INTO Congress passed a motion on the influence of religion in primary schools. The two main points that came from it were that Congress demanded that the need for a religious certificate would be removed for teaching in Catholic schools; and that teachers would be surveyed about religion in schools.
The need for a certificate is surprisingly a recent phenomenon and was only introduced around 2005 as a requirement to teach in a primary school. I qualified in 2003 and didn’t do the certificate and it was never asked for in any of the hundreds of applications I made to schools. I secured a permanent job without it. I managed to teach the Catholic programme so well that I was given a sacrament class the following year. While people often laugh when I tell them this, I wonder what the point of the certificate is when someone like me was able to fulfil the aims of the curriculum without a single bit of Catholic knowledge. I am convinced that the only reason for the certificate was a reaction to the growing multiculturalism in Ireland and it is simply designed to be a barrier. However, I’m sure those that designed the certificate would argue this.
The second decision is that the INTO must survey members with the two following questions:
- Should faith formation education take place in primary schools?
- Should primary school education in Ireland have secular or religious patrons?
I am hoping that the survey will be much broader than this or it will not be taken seriously by anyone.
I was made aware of a paper commissioned by the INTO in 2004 where ethos was examined and it produced a 194-page report. The report was not designed to be critical but it gave a good outline of how denominational and multi-denominational schools worked and there was some very brief findings on the problems. However, overwhelmingly all of the religious patrons claimed that people of different faiths had no problems with their ethos or that the situation never arose. The schools, themselves, judged how well they catered to minorities and they thought that everything was grand.
I’m not convinced that anything would change if the same approach was taken. A quick google will tell you that most principals will call their school inclusive (or very inclusive!) and that their school welcomes all faiths and none.
Any survey that is produced must ask the respondents to declare their own beliefs and how strong those beliefs are. If 65% of all teachers believe that faith formation should take place in schools, it is a pointless task if we don’t know the teachers’ own beliefs. Equally, if 65% of all teachers believe that we should have secular patrons, again it is pointless data without context. I hope the survey goes into much more detail where we can examine how the ethos of a school affects as many aspects of school life as possible. My fear is that we won’t get an opportunity like this for another twenty years. Let’s not waste it.
