Sir, - The recent revelations about the difficulties the Minister for Education is having with the drafting of the proposed Education Bill are indeed welcome news, particularly if the results from the causes outlined by your Education Correspondent (June 25th). The related moves by the Minister for Equality and Law Reform to copperfasten the churches' roles in education by specifically exempting schools from the scope of anti religious discrimination legislation is to be deprecated. The two Ministers, by their actions, have the potential to do more damage to the human rights of pupils and teachers than any other action taken by this State since its foundation, if they continue with their reported draft proposals.
The advice apparently reaching the Government is that the national schools and teacher training colleges are private institutions which are legally permitted to discriminate on grounds of religious profession, status or belief, even though the Constitution specifically debars the State from discriminating on these grounds [Article 44.2.3]. It seems very odd to me, at least, than the State feels that it has to totally fund the salaries of its public servants in these institutions without requiring that its servants' human rights be protected and upheld. It is a question of a washing of hands from the problem. However the residue of a human rights abuse remains which must be addressed: it is not going to go away.
The proponents of denominational education claim that they are acting on the wishes of parents. No national plebiscite has ever been held to establish if this is so but the results of successive opinion polls would appear to reject this contention of the churches. They also wrap the cloak of constitutional respectability around their religious missions which they conduct in the classrooms using public servants (i.e. teachers) as their surrogates in the process.
The Constitution, however, is silent on the use of classrooms as mission fields. It is not silent on the rights of both teachers, pupils and parents not to be discriminated against on grounds of religious belief it requires separation of periods of religious instruction from secular subjects so that pupils who do not wish to be indoctrinated may be withdrawn from class (an empty gesture, in reality, since religious instruction permeates all aspects of the curriculum at the exhortation of the Department of Education [Article 44.2.4]; it requires parents (not the State) to provide according to their means for the religious education of their children [Article 42.1]. Nowhere does it confer any direct constitutional entitlement to a religious ethos in any publicly funded school. The removal of Articles 44.1.2 & 3 recognising the special position of the Roman Catholic Church ended any special pleading in that area. If the article has been removed then that reality must be reflected in a new approach to these matters. The removal of an Article is more than just a paper exercise.
The UN Human Rights' Committee in its report, published in 1993, on the human rights situation in Ireland was critical of our education system in the light of the problems I have dealt with above. The State has to report to the UNHRC again next November. The present conspiracy between Church and State needs to be undone before then. Yours, etc.,
The Mews,
Seaview Terrace,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin 4.