Madam, – Sarah Carey, in her usual cogent style, makes some fine points about the pragmatics of implementing secular primary education in Ireland (“Church-free schools not necessarily the answer”, Opinion, June 24th). But in so doing, she misses a larger and more fundamental philosophical point. This point is more vague than claims about what is “too expensive” to be implemented by Government, and more contentious than claims about what has been seen to “work” in the past. It is a moral point concerning what should happen in this society of ours.
Should those of other faiths, and none, be forced to send their children to Christian schools still divided by an outmoded religious apartheid? Should teachers of other faiths, and none, be forced to converse with and expound upon a belief system they either do not share or have chosen to reject?
Should citizens of this Republic be forced to put up and shut up because the costs of doing what is right are deemed to be too high by Department of Finance bureaucrats?
If we, as a society, can bail out the banks, excuse the judiciary from taxes levied on the rest of the public sector, and reward our taoiseach with a salary far in excess of any leader elected in the Western world, why then can we not do what is right by all citizens of the Republic?
And the word “all” is key here; that the majority practise, or claim to practise, Catholicism is irrelevant. If even one citizen rejects the belief system of the majority then the principles of democratic Republicanism demand that we respect that. Segregating children by religion and foisting the beliefs of the majority on the minority is, and will continue to be for as long as this system remains, a moral wrong. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – If there were a proposal for the complete takeover of the schooling system by the State, our Government should undoubtedly consider abolishing the single-sex schooling system we inherited from the Catholic Church.
There seems to be a common myth that males and females perform better in a single-sex environment, but this is to miss the point entirely of what education is about – that the development of adolescents is not reduced to mere exam results but should educate young people in learning basic social skills that are not confined to their own sex.
Besides the social benefits this would bring, it would also save our Government huge sums in administration costs in the long-term due to there being fewer schools, but larger ones that are more manageable. – Yours, etc,