Sir, - The Government booklet entitled "Relationships and Sexuality Education: Going Forward Together" invites parents to help decide how Relationships and Sexuality Education will be taught in schools attended by their children. Although I support the introduction of RSE, I am less than enthusiastic about what the introduction process reveals about our education system.
Parents are told that they can influence the formulation and implementation of RSE policy: they can help draft, for subsequent approval, a schools policy statement which outlines how RSE will be implemented in a school. But as regards its implementation, parents are not required to decide how it will be taught, nor the approach to be adopted in teaching it, nor the methods to be used. How all these matters are to be dealt with is already specified in the booklet.
Also, parents are not required to decide between the available teaching options that determine the content of what is taught in RSE at any school since these options are not made available to them.
In short, the collective influence of parents on the introduction of RSE in schools is negligible. All the decisions that matter regarding its introduction have been made and the ways that parents are allowed to participate in the introduction process ensures that there is nothing left of any consequence for them to help decide. The ease with which parents are excluded from any real decision-making regarding their children's formal education reveals the true nature of our education system. Ironically, this is the system that many people hope will help create a more inclusive society in Ireland. - Yours, etc.,
John McCarron
Glendasan Drive, Harbour View, Co Wicklow.