The Department of Education is conducting a misleading and harmful survey of primary school parents and guardians, staff, and management board members.
- It misleadingly implies that parents are being given an option to choose non-religious schools, when in reality they are not.
- It harmfully implies that the human right to an objective, critical, and pluralistic education is subject to surveys of a family’s neighbours.
Why the survey is misleading
One of the three main questions is: “Would you prefer your primary school to operate under a denominational (religious) patron or to operate under a multi-denominational (non-religious) patron?”
This is misleading because it implies that multi-denominational is the same as non-religious, and that parents are being given the option of preferring a non-religious school.
However, The relevant issue is not the religious makeup of the patron body. It is whether the school has a religious ethos, and multi-denominational schools are by definition religious. Atheism, humanism, and secularism are not denominations.
In practice, schools classified in Ireland as multi-denominational can have a Catholic chaplain, have religious worship, and celebrate religious festivals. They also have religion and ethics courses that they, not the parents, deem to be suitable for all children.
There are no non-religious (or non-denominational, or secular) schools in Ireland. The government has no plans to open such schools. This survey does not include the option for parents to express a preference for them.
Why the survey is harmful
Under European law and UN human rights treaties, every child has a right to an objective, critical, and pluralistic education. This includes a neutral studying environment, outside the confines of religious instruction classes that the child can decline to attend.
This should be the default type of local primary school in any neighbourhood. Any local child should have equal access, and have their rights respected, regardless of the religious or nonreligious beliefs of their parents or indeed their neighbours.
If religious parents want religious education for their children, they should be able to organise that, as an alternative option to a default secular school system that all local children should have access to.
But it is harmful to the human rights of parents, and to society generally, that a Department of Education survey should give parents an option to choose between two types of religious schools, denominational and multi-denominational, with one type misleadingly implied to be non-religious.
Denominational and Multi-denominational schools
- The phrases denominational, inter-denominational, and multi-denominational are not legally defined in Ireland, and the Department and schools unilaterally make up definitions.
- In reality, denominations are subgroups within a religion, eg Catholic and Protestant within Christianity, or Sunni and Shia within Islam.
- Non-religious worldviews such as atheism, humanism or secularism are not denominations. They are not covered by the term multi-denominational.
- The High Court in the Campaign case in 1996 found that ETB (then VEC community and comprehensive) schools established under a deed of trust could be regarded as denominational. Despite this, they are registered with the Department as multi-denominational.
- The UN has explicitly called on Ireland to open nondenominational schools, and not merely multi-denominational ones.
Atheist Ireland will continue to campaign for a secular state education system that respects human rights, regardless of the religious or nonreligious beliefs of parents, children, staff, or board members.