Sir, – The community national school model appears to be an attempt to bolster individual rights, in a local setting, while avoiding discrimination.
While some may see this as substituting discrimination with a form of limited segregation, which might have to include the teachings of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (yes, it is a religion), I think all these arguments miss the main point – no state should fund the teaching of religion in schools.
Parents have the right to imbue their children with supernatural narratives in their homes, and bring them to their place of worship, but their personal faith, and concomitant ethos, should end at the school gates. Taxes should not underpin faith formation in public schools. – Yours, etc,
CARL DENNIS,
Tuam,
Co Galway.
Sir, – David O'Grady's identification of a notable lack of people from the Travelling community and from lower socio-economic backgrounds in Educate Together schools makes a premature judgment of this brand of school patronage (June 15th). Such institutions represent only 2 per cent of the nation's primary schools, almost 50 times less than the number under Catholic patronage. The minuscule numbers of such schools means that any sample of their student population is unlikely to be representative of the overall population.
Dr O’Grady might withhold his condemnation until the drive for divestment is truly under way. – Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER
McMAHON,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.
Sir, – It’s funny how people are content to refer to the imparting of beliefs they do not subscribe to as propaganda, yet if they agree with those beliefs, then it’s just good old education. – Yours, etc,
PATRICIA O’RIORDAN,
Dublin 8.