Sir, - As a primary teacher, may I respond to Bishop Smith's reported comments on the national school system (May 19th)? Bishop Smith misunderstands the position of national primary schools in Irish society. He wonders whether Catholic schools should be obliged to provide education for those of no or little commitment to the Catholic faith. The reality is that taxpayers, of all religions and none, are obliged to support a system of privately-owned and clerically-controlled Catholic schools.
In almost all areas of the country, the only primary schools available are Catholic. It is disingenuous to suggest that parents have other options or that the State might build an alternative system of secular schools. The Catholic church will have to accept that national schools must accommodate the tens of thousands of families who have declared themselves, in successive censuses, as having no religion, or who wish such matters to be private.
Bishop Smith further asserts that teachers are obliged to teach the Catholic religion in national schools. They are not, if their conscience dictates otherwise. Many don't. Nor is it beyond the bounds of possibility that, in the future, the teachers' professional association might, for professional reasons, instruct all of its members not to teach religion, or at the very least to stop the practice of abandoning the official curriculum in the weeks leading up to First Holy Communion and Confirmation to prepare children for these events. It might decide that such preparation would be more appropriately carried out by trained catechists outside school hours.
The majority of parents and teachers want an open, tolerant and inclusive system of education. If the Catholic bishops want an exclusively Catholic system of primary schools, they will have to fund it themselves. - Yours, etc.,
Gerry McAlister, College Manor, Dublin 9.