‘Divestment Of School Patronage Is Slow’

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From top: Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Dr James Reilly; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child members Gehad Madi, of Egypt, and Suzanne Aho Assouma, of Togo

Today members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child are looking at Ireland’s record on children’s rights.

It’s been ten years since the committee last reviewed Ireland’s record.

This morning, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Dr James Reilly spoke before the committee at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland and fielded questions in relation to school patronage.

At one point, one of the committee’s members, Suzanne Aho Assouma, from Togo, interrupted to as if Ireland plans to decriminalise abortion.

It’s understood Dr Reilly, and members of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, will reply to questions this afternoon when a second session gets under way at 2pm (Irish time).

From this morning’s session:

Dr James Reilly: “To reassure the committee, the Equal Status Act prohibit discrimination on nine grounds, namely gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, race, membership of the Traveller community and disability. And the Employment Acts cover discrimination in the workplace and the Equal Status Act provides protection against discrimination in the provision of goods and services. And the legislation is designed to promote equality and prohibit discrimination in any form that it comes. So that applies in the general sense to both, to all people and also to Travellers and Roma.

In relation to the issue around patronage of the schools, I suppose it’s important to point out that our school system evolved from the religious orders themselves and so it’s not surprise that we have such a preponderance of denominational schools with 95 per cent of primary and 70 per cent of secondary schools of a denominational nature. But we are committed, as a Government, to move to a more pluralist system of patronage for our schools.

The report of the advisory group to the forum among patronage and pluralism in the primary sector, which was published in April 2012, recommended steps that could be taken to ensure that the education system can provide a sufficiently diverse number and range of primary schools to cater for all religions and none. And, as clear evidence that change is occurring, in relation to the ethos of newly provided schools to meet demographic need, since 2011 patronage and decisions have been made in respect of 45 new schools established to meet demographic need and all of these decisions have involved consultation with parents, as to the preferred type of school. Over 90 per cent of the new schools have a multi-denominational ethos.

So where demographic need does not exist the means of achieving pluralism in school choice is through a process of divestment of existing school patronage and this, I have to admit, is a slow process. But the Minister for Education has recently emphasised the importance of accelerating the process in that regard.

Can I just also say, I think it’s important, to point out that, we do have a much more pluralist society and a much more open society in Ireland. Now, there is one school I’m aware of in my own constituency where there’s 81 different nationalities attending that school.

So the issue is one of concern to us, that the patronage  of our schools is lagging way behind the actuality of our education system which is, you know, the separation of state and church is clearly well defined. And secondly, the minister has also indicated that she’s going to repeal part of an act that dates from 1965 which states that religious education  was the most important element of education in primary schools.”

Gehad Madi: “Thank you very much… The problem is implementation on the ground and we see that there is a big portion of people who would like to enrol their children in non-denominational education do not find the right school in their community, in their county, to do that.

And we understand, also, that religious education, I stand here to be corrected, is part of the curriculum of many schools. Is this the case? Because a student who does not participate in such lessons will have some problems in their grades or graduation. So I wanted to be clear on this issue, to help us better understand the information. And we do acknowledge that the process of transfer is being very slow. Thank you.”

Suzanne Aho Assouma: “Thank you. I haven’t yet had an answer concerning discrimination against boys because they’ve had sexual intercourse. I would like to also know what is being done to prevent stigmatisation of girls. Now on the abortion act, do you plan decriminalise abortion? And, in this regard, we believe that there is discrimination against pregnant girls who have to travel to another country in order to have an abortion. So we are asking why abortions cannot be carried out in Ireland? Is this for religious reasons? And I’d also like to know what happens to those girls who travel abroad to get an abortion? What happens if they haven’t got the necessary resources? What do they do in this case?”

Watch live (from 2pm) here

Meanwhile, back in Ireland…

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28 thoughts on “‘Divestment Of School Patronage Is Slow’

  1. Spaghetti Hoop

    Delighted to have the global experts involved. I’ll be watching Bottler closely on this – he sounds pathetically apologetic so far.

    1. Toe Up

      Pathetically apologetic, but it will still take an age for any noteworthy changes to be implemented.

  2. Delacaravanio

    “In relation to the issue around patronage of the schools, I suppose it’s important to point out that our school system evolved from the religious orders themselves and so it’s not surprise that we have such a preponderance of denominational schools with 95 per cent of primary and 70 per cent of secondary schools of a denominational nature”

    That’s, quite frankly, bullsh1t. The national school system established by the government in the 19th century was explicitly non denominational. In fact the sectarian system of primary education we have today “evolved” into the hands of the religious orders.

    In reality the churches successfully undermined the non denominational nature of the system in order to push their explicitly sectarian agenda. There was no real demand for denominational schools from parents.

  3. Disasta

    Makes a balls of everything he touches.

    Made a balls of the introduction of the free pre-school year among other child related things.

  4. ahjayzis

    A child of parents of a different religion/denomination to that of the school or a child of parents with no religion forced to attend the local denominational school is worse off than a child of religious parents attending a non-denominational school with provisions for after-school intensive indoctrination by outside priests.

    That’s why it’s unfair for a majority in a country town to decide for now and ever that their school believes in X superstition and the 49% will just have to live with it. It’s not democracy, it’s mob rule. The State and tax-euros have no place teaching kids about magic.

      1. ahjayzis

        It is magic. It was magic to me when I was hearing how Jesus multiplied fish or turned water to wine and conquered death and died for the bad things I do. I wasn’t brought up by religious parents, by about seven it sounded like absolute hysterical garbage from the same people who taught me that 2+2=4, the earth orbits the sun and the difference between your and you’re.

        It’s totally inappropriate for the purveyors of fact to be double-jobbing for the churches presenting myth as history, it lends a false skin of respectability and logic to bonkers superstitions.

  5. newsjustin

    You’d imagine a Committee member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child would want to protect unborn children.

    1. ReproBertie

      And yet there they sit, not judging people’s choices but instead asking what support the state offers to those who are forced to make an incredibly difficult decision.

    2. MajorThrill

      If we’re talking about hypothetical constructs I’d love them to be more concerned about the rights of Irish children in parallel dimensions. I hear XB-2138 is a bit of a kip since the robot uprising.

    3. Floodedout

      You’d imagine the Church would actually care about preventing child abuse rather than shipping priests off to foreign countries where they can do it for a little longer. Ain’t life grand?

  6. han solo's carbonite dream

    Godless bastards. I hope people take note of how the UN (under the command of the Illuminati) seek to break down banners that hold people together such as nationality , religion and others.
    This is so that nobody belongs to a cohesive group and thus are easier to control as their is no common belief or standard that they can rally around.

    cannot believe that people are blind to this.

      1. MajorThrill

        Mock all you like but if you read between the lines you can clearly see Gehad Madi saying that jet fuel can in fact melt steel beams.

    1. ReproBertie

      Imagine there’s no countries
      It isn’t hard to do
      Nothing to kill or die for
      And no religion too
      Imagine all the people
      Living life in peace.

    2. ahjayzis

      The greatest trick the Devil pulled was to convince the world the UN was a toothless, mostly-ignored talking shop with insufficient authority or power.

  7. Dόn Pídgéόní

    Nice one Suzanne. Hopefully she’ll go up North and ask them what the hell they are doing messing about up there as well

  8. munkifisht

    Simple fix, ban religion being taught in public schools during school hours. If kids want to learn religion allow then to attend after school classes paid for by the parents. Why should the tax payer have to front up to teach children mumbo jumbo fairy stories?

    1. Chris

      Nothing like a good ol’ fashioned banning. Simplicity itself, it’s not like banning anything ever spiralled out of control. Not once, all bans are 100 percent successful, not complicated at all, that’s why they’re so popular.

      1. ahjayzis

        Primary education free from barbaric superstition is effectively banned – there are zero non-denominational schools in Ireland.

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