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Religion, teachers and schools

Is religion a barrier to getting a job as a primary teacher?

Letters to the Editor. Illustration: Paul Scott
The Irish Times - Letters to the Editor.
Wed Oct 09 2024 - 00:10

Sir, – Reading “‘It’s common knowledge teachers lie about their faith’: Is religion a barrier to getting a job as a primary teacher?” (Education, October 8th) is like entering a time-warp back to 1950s Ireland. What a sad indictment of our society. These teachers are to be applauded for their bravery in speaking out, and for not doing the traditional Irish thing of keeping the head down and leaving unethical practices swept under the carpet. Will we ever learn?

In Ireland, around 88 per cent of publicly funded schools are controlled by Catholic patrons. In this system, discrimination against teachers is not discrimination if it is religious discrimination. This fosters a toxic and immoral culture of pretence and hypocrisy. Teachers feel coerced to betray their consciences in order to get a job and keep it. When schools are crying out for teachers, is it any wonder that would-be teachers are put off by the necessity to engage in this totalitarian and sickening charade?

Regarding “religious instruction”, any form of indoctrination is wrong, be it religious or otherwise. Why is it so necessary to indoctrinate highly impressionable and intellectually vulnerable young children during school hours and make it impossible for them not to attend same? Why is it so necessary to conflate education and indoctrination?

Could it be that patrons know full well that were it not for this practice, and if no attempt were made to indoctrinate people until they had reached adulthood, the numbers declaring themselves among the ranks of the “faithful” would collapse?

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Whatever about wanted religious indoctrination, the problem of children receiving unwanted religious indoctrination, which the Department of Education is on full notice of, is even more immoral. Children have a constitutional right to not attend religious instruction in Irish publicly funded schools, but this right is flouted in schools across the country. Even the original Irish national school system, established back in 1831, forbade this. It declared, “Even the suspicion of proselytism” was to be “banished”.

The system that pertained in 1831 was more progressive and in keeping with the nature of a modern liberal democracy than the one that pertains in 2024. – Yours, etc,

ROB SADLIER,

Rathfarnham,

Dublin 16.

Sir, – The biggest barrier to getting a job in a Catholic primary school in the greater Dublin area is not religion, it is rent.

There are plenty of properly qualified young teachers who would like to teach in a Catholic school, and whom our schools would love to employ, but they are in Australia or Dubai because they can neither afford to rent or buy in in the greater Dublin area.

All of the other patron bodies, who do not require a religion certificate, are facing exactly the same challenge. Rent, not religion, is at the root of the recruitment crises.

Moreover, the biggest issue for Irish education is not religion it is resources. The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association welcomed the recent announcement in the budget that capitation would be raised to €224 per pupil, with an additional cost of living payment of €35.80 per pupil between now and Christmas. I would like to thank the Minister for Education and her officials for their success in what, I know, was a hard-fought battle.

However, this amount, though welcome, falls short of the €270 per pupil needed to match the embedded inflation rate of 35 per cent which schools have experienced over the last number of years.

We have made welcome progress toward a sustainable level of funding for schools but, as the calls to our office from cash-strapped school attest, we are not there yet. – Yours, etc,

SEAMUS MULCONRY,

General Secretary,

Catholic Primary Schools Management Association,

Maynooth,

Co Kildare.