A chara, – Rob Sadlier (October 21st) says that the health of a society is judged by how it treats minorities. His suggestion is that because most schools are under religious patronage then those who do not adhere to those faiths are being discriminated against.
The counter-argument to this is that our system allows people to establish schools to cater for the ethos they prefer. The fact there are difficulties in doing so does not make it impossible and many schools have been set up in order to provide an alternative to the majority ethos in this country.
I cannot say what kind of system Mr Sadlier would like to see, but I do know that many in this debate have argued for a secular system. This would, of course, mean that those who prefer secularism as the ethos of our schools would get what they wanted but those who want a denominational education for their children would not.
My vote would be for our current system. In my opinion the health of a society can also be judged by the way it does not let unjustified claims of discrimination from a small number of people push it into behaviour that would actually discriminate against the vast majority. – Is mise,
Rev PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer,
Co Kilkenny.