Secularist group seeks civil rights guarantees for all in Education Bill

THE Campaign to Separate Church and State has called for the inclusion in the Education Bill of provisions to ensure that the constitutional rights of all involved in education will be protected.

It further called on the teacher unions to put the civil and religious rights of pupils, their parents, teachers, and the obligations of the State to the fore in representations on the Bill. It also wants the appointment of an Education Ombudsman.

Mr David Parris, chairman of the campaign, said it was concerned that open debate on the Education Bill appeared to have ceased and "the players were now reverting to type". There was "private lobbying and suppression of the facts."

He called for publication of the Minister for Education's and school patrons' agreement on the governance of primary schools.

He spoke of a climate of fear among teachers concerning the Bill and their reluctance to publicly air their criticisms for fear of the possible effects in their employment.

He highlighted what he described as an anomaly of the prevent situation whereby teachers who were legally married in a register office, legally divorced, or gay, could be made feel vulnerable in schools totally funded by the State.

It was "a paradox" that while one arm of the State was removing discrimination, the other was creating a circumstance where discrimination would be legally possible.

Generally he was worried about "the nexus of legislation", involving the equality Bill, the universities Bill, and the education Bill, which, combined, could serve to reduce rights by increasing discrimination in areas funded by the public.

Mr Parris compared the present denominational/multi denominational system of education in this State to the separate development idea in the old South Africa.

He drew attention to the comment of the President, Mrs Robinson, that the opening of a Muslim school in Clonskeagh, Co Dublin recently, was an indication of Ireland's increasing pluralism. He disagreed with this although the ethos of that school was Muslim, its teachers were not.

In this State, he said, teacher training was controlled totally by the two larger Christian denominations, the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland. There were no training facilities for teachers from other religious backgrounds.

Yet in this State 8 or 9 per cent of the population described them selves as having no religion or being atheistic in the last census.

There were, he said, over 1,000 Catholic primary schools in the State, which "was not greatly out of line" with the proportion of the population which described itself as Catholic. A Church of Ireland population of 82,000 was catered for by 170 schools.

However for the 45,000 people who identified themselves as belonging to minority religions, there were just 18 Presbyterian schools, one Methodist school, one Jewish school, one Muslim school and 14 multi denominational schools.

But for the 83,000 who left the religion question unanswered on the census form there were no schools. Nor were there any for the 66,000 who described themselves as having no religion. There were, in fact, no non denominational schools in this State, he said.

In Mr Parris's view, education is a publicly funded public service, should be run on lines similar to any other public service. Like the Post Office, it should be available to all, without fear or favour.

He also expressed fears that the quota system - whereby a limited number of children from denominations other than that of a school would be accepted as pupils - was open to abuse. He cited the experience of a colleague who had enrolled her child at a Church of Ireland school, only to be told when the child was of age that the non Church of Ireland quota there was full. She was told, however, the child would be accepted, on condition it attended religion class.

As an interim measure he fell the 1972 legislation integrating religion into the primary school curriculum should be repealed, making religion a separate school subject. Then parents who wished to do so could remove their children from such classes.

His fear, however, and that of the campaign, was that the new legislation would simply institutional is existing discrimination.