A chara, – Parents have the right and the responsibility to educate their children, including providing for their religious or philosophical education. The State has no right to prevent or hinder this undertaking, rather it has a duty to assist parents in this task.
No parent, whether atheist, agnostic or religious, should be forced to submit their child to a moral or religious education at odds with their own belief system.
When parents are taxed so heavily that their ability to fund private education is compromised, then the State has effectively taken away their parental rights by taking away their money.
The State does not pay for education – taxpayers do. And taxpayers are parents whose rights should be respected.
The obvious solution is to let the money follow the child by a system of educational vouchers or tax rebates. Rather than paying teachers’ salaries, or giving capital grants, if education were funded solely in this way, it would allow parents to choose their own educational model.
There would be nothing to prevent non-governmental organisations making a contribution as organisers of schools, whether they were religious or non-denominational groupings.
It would allow parents to make their own decisions about how far they were willing to let their children travel to school. It would encourage whole sectors of the private education market, such as the providers of music education, to become more integrated into a holistic system.
And it would end the injustice to home-educating families, who pay their taxes but receive no benefits whatsoever. It is simply tyranny for the State to take away parents’ rights by taking away their money. – Is mise,
ROSEMARY SWORDS,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.