THE PRINCIPAL of one of the largest secondary schools in the State has called on the Minister for Education to issue guidelines on the wearing of the hijab in State schools. RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC, Migration Correspondent reports
This follows the department's refusal to offer advice to the school when a Muslim couple asked last September that their daughter be allowed to wear the headscarf in class.
Nicholas Sweetman, principal of Gorey Community School in Co Wexford, said official direction would bring an end to the practice of schools imposing divergent policies and would clarify the issue for schools and Muslim parents.
Correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act shows the school wrote to then minister for education Mary Hanafin last October, when a Muslim couple asked that their child wear the hijab in class.
Though this contravened the school's rules on uniform, the principal agreed to the request pending approval by the board of management.
"Our board of management met . . . and after a very extensive discussion of the issues, it was felt that the board should be entitled to guidance from the department," Mr Sweetman wrote to the minister, adding that this needed to be addressed "with some urgency".
When no response was received, the school again wrote to the minister in December. In reply, her private secretary advised that it was a matter for the board of management to decide on a school policy, "and it would not be appropriate for the department to direct or advise a school in relation to any aspect of its policy on dress code".
The minister's representative pointed to two sections of the Education Act 1998.
The first charges boards of management with a duty to uphold the "characteristic spirit of the school" as determined by the cultural, educational, moral, religious, social, linguistic and spiritual values which inform and characterise it. The second balances this with the requirement to have regard to the principles of a democratic society and "have respect and promote respect for the diversity of values, beliefs, traditions, languages and ways of life in society".
The Gorey school, where 85 out of some 1,500 students come from a foreign background, later decided to continue to allow the pupil to wear her hijab.
Mr Sweetman told The Irish Times that his school welcomed all pupils and had excellent relations with minority communities. "But as a State school, the State should be offering guidance so that we don't have a situation where in this school the child is allowed to wear the hijab, and another school down the road will say, 'we don't allow that'," he said.
"It's fine for me to say as principal of this school that it's grand for a girl to wear a hijab here, but supposing a child comes wanting to wear the full veil. Do I say yes or do I say no? And why do I say yes or no?"