Churches launch new school religion programme

A new religious education programme for Protestant primary schools throughout the island was launched in Dublin yesterday by the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist churches.

Titled Follow Me, it was developed with the help of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Commission on Catechetics, and Veritas, the Catholic publishers.

Speaking at the launch, the Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, said that in religious education "Northern Ireland, perhaps quite surprisingly to the rest of the world, has given a unique lead in that the Catholic Church and the three main Reformed Churches 10 years ago produced a common-core programme".

He was delighted a similar partnership between the chur ches made such a major contribution to Follow Me.

He noted that the Church of Ireland found itself "in radically different circumstances" in the two jurisdictions on the island. "In the Republic we provide the majority of primary schools for the Protestant population.

"In Northern Ireland we work in partnership with the five local education authorities and the Presbyterian and Methodist churches."

The guest speaker, the president of Dublin City University, Prof Ferdinand von Prondzyn ski, said Ireland was at a crossroads.

"Until recently the country had a remarkably homogenous frame of reference, with a widely shared national, cultural and religious outlook. It was tolerant of other traditions and practices, but these were at the margins of society."

To some extent it could be argued that this shared framework was underpinned by economic hardship, emigration and shared disadvantage, he said.

However, in recent years this dominant frame of reference had been compromised, he said. "The shared ethical and religious values have been undermined by a growing materialism, as well as revelations about individual behaviour within organised religion".

The traditional deference given to those in authority had all but disappeared, while tolerance had also been eroded, as shown in the growth of racism, he said.

"In this setting, the nurturing of a sense of ethical values, particularly at a young age, has become far more important, and these must be presented in a form which is accessible in a modern setting and to an audience whose attention is easily diverted," he said.

Follow Me was "an important initiative to achieve those aims," he continued, and he hoped it would make "a significant contribution to the renewed growth of an ethically aware and responsible society".

The chairman of the Church of Ireland Board of Education, Canon John McCullagh, said Follow Me sought also to underline the parents' role in education by including sections for sharing by children and parents. It also reflected both the Republic's primary school curriculum and the Northern Ireland Common Core Religious Education Programme, he said.

Follow Me is edited and its preparation was co-ordinated by Mrs Jacqui Wilkinson, an teacher with wide experience of religious education.