Educate Together need to discriminate. There. I said it. I know the philosophy is about togetherness but honestly, this is the real world.
A first-come, first-served enrolment policy is about as discriminatory as you can get and Catholic children are taking places that should (until the national situation improves) be reserved for my no-religion children.
First come first served favours the local and the clued-in. Everyone else is shafted. In fact, even the local and the clued-in can be snookered. My friend had her baby's name down in her local Educate Together school in Bray, Co Wicklow before her child turned six weeks old. Where was her child on the list? Number 67 for 30-odd places.
I moved to Wicklow a year ago. My little boy was two at the time. I put his name down for the local Educate Together school in Greystones and let’s just say that the child who has the 130th place in the queue is way ahead of us.
My problem is this. Educate Together tells us that half of the children in its schools are Catholic.
That is absolutely ideal and lovely, but actually those children have other options when it comes to schools.
My children aren’t baptised. I’m not a practising Catholic, so to me, baptising them would be really hypocritical and I try not to be a hypocrite. We don’t have any other options. People are so adamant that Catholics have a right to a Catholic school. Well, what about my child’s rights?
I would gladly travel, but as I said, my friend who was number 60-something on the list in Bray had her child’s name down before he knew how to smile. What chance do we have?
I don’t want to send my child to a Catholic school or a school of any other denomination for that matter. I don’t want him to go through Communion and Confirmation classes having to be otherwise occupied while religious preparation takes over. He deserves a school that will not mark him out as different. He deserves a place in an Educate Together school.
Catholic schools can and do prioritise Catholics; Protestant schools do the same for Protestants and I actually think that’s fair enough. My problem is that there are so few schools where the non-religious can actually fit in, I think that until there are more non-religious schools, Educate Together needs to step up and fill the gap. It shouldn’t be forever, and it certainly shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity to let the Catholic church off the hook when it comes to handing schools over to the State, but my child needs this, and there are many more who do too.
Please, Educate Together, prioritise us non-religious. Operate a first-come first- served system after that, but stop pretending the world is an equal place. For children like my son, education options are very unequal indeed.
This column gives a voice to those interested in education. education@irishtimes.com
