The authors of both the Green and White Papers on education express concern regarding the rights of non-religious parents who in practice have no option but to send their children to churchsponsored schools. Yet it is the State, not the churches, which requires that all primary schools in the Republic promote a religious view of life.

According to Rule 68 of Rules for National Schools "a religious spirit should inform and vivify the whole work of the school". The Primary Teacher's Handbook speaks of each person as having "life to lead and a soul to be saved" and prescribes an integration between "religious and secular instruction".

Apart from respecting their Constitutional right to withdraw their children from classes in religion, what should be the response of the Government to the demands of non-believing parents in this country? It would be unacceptable and it would be impossible to proscribe all expression of religious belief from school life and the solution of providing separate non-denominational schools for the children of the small minority of non-believing parents is not economically realistic. But, even if it were, such a segregation would hardly serve the educational interests of the children concerned.

In affirming a commitment to ensure that "the Constitutional rights of children are fully safeguarded", the White Paper proposes that guidelines of "good practice" be developed in this delicate area. Appropriately understood and given expression, the idea of "good practice" has the potential to accommodate the wishes of parents who dissent from the conjoining of religious and cultural dimensions of identity in a country where religion and culture have always been closely related.

Historically in Irish education this notion of "good practice" was to be found in the requirement that teachers be "careful, in presence of children of different beliefs, not to touch on matters of controversy". Any definition of "good practice" will demand the sensitivity and tact which are features of all good teaching. This will involve, for example, the avoidance of offensive or stigmatising comments about non-believers. It will also involve the presentation of material which integrates religion with other subjects without any attempt at proselytism or indoctrination.

But where teachers are themselves committed to a religious view of life, this is bound to influence how they see issues which arise across the curriculum. Giving expression to this view is perfectly defensible and entirely compatible with the cultivation of autonomy as an educational aim.

A final point. In designing guidelines of "good practice" as well as the rights of parents, the rights of children themselves must also be considered. Children have a right to a genuine encounter with the sources of meaning and purpose which have been of significance to humankind. As one of the most important of these sources is religion, this implies an entitlement to an education in religion.

Lecturer in the Mater Dei Institute of Education and president of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland

Education & Living

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