The Bishops’ Council for Education has rejected claims made in a report on the teaching of religion in Community National Schools on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland radio programme, which suggested that the education programme was proposed and designed by the Catholic Church.
The report broadcast on RTÉ Radio on Thursday morning said details had emerged in documents released under the Freedom of Information Act concerning commitments given by the Department of Education to the Catholic Church about the teaching of religion in the new, multi-denominational schools.
In 2007, the then Minister for Education Mary Hanafin announced a new kind of primary school called the Community National Schools.
These schools would be run by Vocational Education Committees and would educate children from all religious backgrounds in their individual faiths as well as catering for children of no faith.
This novel approach to catering to diversity in religious education required negotiations from all the relevant faith stakeholders, as well as the Department of Education and parents.
For Catholic children it meant they would be prepared for Communion and Confirmation during school hours.
The first two of these schools opened in Dublin in 2008.
There are now five such schools in Dublin and its commuter-belt. More are planned in the future.
The RTÉ report claimed the Bishops’ representatives were given guarantees that Catholic children in the schools would receive separate Catholic religious education.
In their statement issued on Thursday evening, the Bishops’ Council for Education said its representatives were invited to meet Department of Education officials on April 27 2007 as part of a consultation process concerning the new community schools.
Officials from the Department indicated that the Community National Schools would serve the whole community.
The schools would serve parents who wish to have their children receive religious instruction and parents who do not wish their children to receive such.
“Provision for religious instruction would be made during the school day,” the Bishops' representatives recalled.
The Bishops’ Commission proposed that teachers delivering religious instruction to Catholic students be duly qualified and that the curriculum dealing specifically with the religious instruction of Catholic children be in accordance with the provisions approved by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
They say the actual programme in religious education was not discussed.
According to RTÉ, the Department of Education went ahead with the plan to separate children according to their religion despite a warning from its own curriculum development agency, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) that such a move, “ran counter to research on how children settled and built a foundation for success at school.”
The NCCA also told the then Minister for Education, Batt O'Keeffe, “Integration is vital for a child's well-being and successful learning.”
However, the Department signalled the need for draft proposals to make provision for the preparation for Communion and Confirmation of Catholic children during the school day and indicated that this would necessitate separation of Catholic children in order to provide for this.
According to RTÉ, the Department told the NCCA that aspects of its draft programme could, “unsettle some of the key players.”
The Marino Institute in Dublin was then brought in by the Department to develop a draft programme and it is this programme that is currently being used in the five Community National Schools.
When the new Community National Schools were finally announced by the Department of Education and Skills in December 2007, it was welcomed by the Catholic Bishops.
Bishop Leo O’Reilly, who was then Chairman of the Commission for Education, said the Church welcomed, "choice and diversity within the national education system.”
He added, "We believe that it is important to accommodate the rights and needs of people of different faith backgrounds, and of none, to an education which reflects, as far as possible, their sincerely held convictions and values.”