Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn has questioned
the amount of time devoted to religious instruction in primary schools
and has called for a public debate on the issue.
He suggested Catholic authorities move to
transfer more elements of sacramental preparation from the school to the
local parish, saying Ireland and Israel spend considerably more time on
religious instruction than any other OECD countries.
Commenting on a recent Irish National Teachers'
Organisation (INTO) survey, in which 70 per cent of schools said they
were spending more than the allocated 2.5 hours a week on religious
instruction, Mr Quinn asked: “Can we really afford to continue
providing, for example, a mere 60 minutes per week of scientific
instruction to our children? Or, for that matter, can we afford to
maintain PE at the same level – just 60 minutes per week?”
Mr Quinn was speaking at the AGM of the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA) yesterday where he also stressed the need to accelerate progress on changes to school patronage.
The Minister said it was clear from recent
parental surveys that parents in 29 areas support an immediate change in
the existing school patronage, and he regretted that some boards of
management had conducted “scaremongering campaigns” over the course of
these surveys.
“These campaigns asserted to parents that
expressing a desire for any other form of patronage would lead to a
unilateral handover of Catholic schools to non-Catholic patrons. This was never the intention and I regret that
a small minority of schools felt the need to embark upon such
scaremongering,” he said.
Speaking after the event, the Minister said he
would be “disappointed” if there were no new arrangements in place in
the 29 areas identified in the survey by September 2014.
Responding to the Minister’s comments on the
time devoted to teaching religion, CPSMA vice-chairman Fr Denis McNelis
said his organisation would be happy to discuss the issue.
‘Widespread disapproval’
“However, I think there would be widespread disapproval on the
part of parents and most teachers . . . if we were to go down the road
of removing entirely sacramental preparation from the school,” said Fr
McNelis.
He suggested that the department conduct a survey of parents on the issue.
The National Council for Curriculum and
Assessment has begun work on the development of a programme on religion,
beliefs and ethics for primary schools, the Minister announced
yesterday.
“These programmes will supplement, rather than replace, existing faith formation programmes in schools,” he said.
Meanwhile, the CPSMA has announced plans for a
set of guidelines for boards of management on inclusion of non-Catholic
pupils in Catholic schools.
“At the moment there exists no set of
guidelines to help existing primary schools to include students of other
faiths and none,” said CPSMA general secretary Eileen Flynn.
“So, working with our members and the Catholic Schools Partnership, we will be developing a set of recommended options to ensure that all of our schools have access to best practice.”
The recent INTO survey
Religion in Primary School
found that four-fifths of schools have pupils attending who
are not of the faith of the school, with most respondents reporting
between 1 to 20 per cent of these pupils.