If We Owned The Schools

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Anthony Muldoon writes:

Equate is a children’s rights education reform campaign and we published a new national opinion poll* on education reform yesterday.Key findings include:

46% would not choose a Christian school for their child if they had a choice locally
1 in 5 people are aware of someone who has baptised their child just to get them into the local school
77% do not think a school should have the right to refuse admission to a child who has a different religion to that of the school’s patron
62% think reform of school patronage should be a key priority for next Government

There has been so much talk in the media about reform to education over the past few months and these figures show that Irish people want to see that reform soon!

Equate (Facebook)

* Survey carried out by Behaviour and Attitudes with1001 people across the country questioned.

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50 thoughts on “If We Owned The Schools”

    1. Clampers Outside!

      Like when IONA asked a bunch of Catholics the same question?

      No. It’s not.

      The study was completed by an independent body, B&A. A co. that relies on people believing and trusting that their research is free of bias and is independent. I’m sure they’d happily mess with that basic tenet just to skew this wee report…. of course they would.

      1. Marian

        Great! Off you go and set up new schools. Teachers these days are paid peanuts. They rely on top-ups from private sources to have any kind of a modest independent lifestyle.

        That the state can’t provide for its citizens is not the church’s problem. But the church aren’t in competition – they want to see as many people benefitting from as high a quality education as possible. That’s their motive. A Christian motive. It’s quite refreshing that organisations like the Catholic Church herald this message in the 21st century. We need their guidance now more than ever. It’s quite unlike cranky atheist lobby groups who have very weird motives (a lot of which involves tearing down – not creating). It takes decades of training and a once-in-a-century gifted person to create a masterpiece. It takes 5 seconds to rip it off its pedestal and destroy it. These New Ireland philistines are not only pig ignorant, they’re also quite bigoted and resentful (fearful, even) that higher quality people and higher ideas than those inside their narrow minds might exist. They want to drag innocent children down to their level of hopelessness and obstinate nihilism.

        1. Caroline

          Your spelling and grammar is exemplary as always, “Marian”. You’re certainly a testament to the education of whoever created you.

          1. Marian

            What? I leave the copy editing to the experts. I make mistakes all the time. There’s nothing worse nothing worse than someone who makes mistakes than someone who *thinks* they’re not making mistakes. The same can be said for know-it-all religious “experts” who opine in the Oirsh Toimes and truly believe that nobody will notice their howlers.

            The Catholic Church are pretty particular about their language – you’ll never see a stray comma in a Mass booklet. They would be good in that regard. Tis the Word of God after all.

          2. Caroline

            Just mind yourself. It would break Mick’s heart if he found out. But that’s enough of me rambling and not a tumblr in the house updated.

        2. Always Wright

          “Teachers these days are paid peanuts. They rely on top-ups from private sources to have any kind of a modest independent lifestyle.”
          I wonder what, if any, evidence you have to support this strange statement.
          I only ask because I’m a teacher and now I feel I must be missing out on some wondrous private top-up bonanza.

        4. ahjayzis

          The ignorance just rolls off you in waves.

          First off, no one is proposing atheist schools. As an atheist, I would be as opposed to state-funded public schools with an ‘atheist’ ethos as much as I am those with a catholic ethos. Secularism does not equal atheism. Little things like keeping religion at the beginning or start of the day isn’t a huge thing to ask.

          Secondly, the state provides every student place, chair, desk, light fitting, electricity watt, hour of teaching, new lick of pain, new wing of classrooms, and everything else, that means taxpayers who are catholic, buddhist, jedi and atheist – the catholic church doesn’t provide education in this country, it manages it, without putting a hand in it’s pocket. That’s an unearned, unwarranted position of power, not some selfless act.

          The fact that you can be outraged at people supposedly trying to impose an atheistic ethos on your kids but totally comfortable with the status quo where a catholic ethos is foisted on the children of your fellow citizens, is galling and thankfully becoming a minority, backward view.

  2. Dόn Pídgéόní

    Look how lovely you’ve been by putting the number survey up there. + research points BS!!

    Also, interesting results – 46% is higher than I thought but then again..

        1. ahyeah

          I’d have guessed 75% don’t want a Christian school.

          Personally I’m 100% opposed (see what I did there?)

          1. Dόn Pídgéόní

            Its enough to me to show that they need to be giving parents choice if nearly half want something else.

            I see yah!

      2. Owen C

        I’d like to know the exact question that was asked. 46% seems very high. My guess is the question was “If you had the choice, would you choose a Christian school, a non-christian school or have no preference between either?”, with 54% choosing a christian school, and the 46% being a combination of say 23% non-christian, 23% no preference. As i said, I’d like to see the exact question and responses which were given.

  3. ahjayzis

    I’d quibble with their wording.

    Four year old’s don’t have a religion.
    “Catholic child” should be as nonsensical a term as “Fianna Fail child”.

    Great campaign though, great to see it coming together.

    2. Saint Paul

      Saint Paul would quibble with their brand name.

      Can they not think of something a little more bouncy?

      e.g “FuppDaPope”

  4. Murph Mikey

    1001 people we asked, thats not many…when they prob asked each other first, then their best buds, moms and dads, etc etc….. I wouldnt trust those figures….

    1. Dόn Pídgéόní

      Behaviour and Attitudes are a market research firm – so no, none of that happened. 1000 is about how many are generally asked for most polls, including election ones. Your concern should be about how representative it is but these firms are pretty good at it since it’s their job.

      1. PaddyM

        The opinion research company ask the questions but generally the client (or clients) write them, whether the client be Equate or Iona.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

        https://www.broadsheet.ie/2015/11/24/nothing-to-c-here/

        Any opinion poll commissioned by any advocacy organisation – regardless of the issue, regardless of the organisation’s position on the issue or your position or mine on the issue – needs to be viewed with a degree of skepticism.

        1. Dόn Pídgéόní

          Yes but my main concern firstly is whether it is representative or not. Then look at the questions. And looking at the pic above, which I assume is based on the questions, they look OK at a quick glance.

          1. PaddyM

            It depends on the phraseology of the questions and their ordering (the Yes Minister clip above is a satirical but largely accurate example of this) and a lot of those questions are of the form “Are you in favour of good things and opposed to bad things?”. All we’ve seen of the details of the poll are the highlights being displayed on Equate’s website (there doesn’t seem to be anything that I can see about it on Behaviour & Attitudes’ website).

            As I’ve said I’m very cynical about lobbying groups of all stripes and their efforts to represent public opinion as being either on their side or a lot less ambiguously on their side than is actually the case.

        2. Saint Paul

          Saint Paul can advise can survey gatherers are asked to process x numbers of surveys daily and are not expected to be scrupulous 100% of the time (if you know what I mean)

      1. Saint Paul

        Saint Paul considers that the choice of appropriate sample size is a function of the size of the population

  5. Murph Mikey

    if your not Catholic – dont send your kids to a Catholic school…….simples.

    If many Catholic families moved to Dubai/India do you think they would change their schools to not teach Islam/Hinduism etc? – NO

    1. Dόn Pídgéόní

      Kids in Dubai and India from white expats tend to go to the local branch of the American School of [insert location]. I doubt any of them are going into local schools. Which is worse imo.

    2. Zaccone

      What about when the only schools in a region are Catholic schools, as is the case in quite a lot of Ireland?

      Where do you send your non-Catholic kids then?

    3. Ms Piggy

      Murph, you appear to have come into this discussion halfway through, and not be aware of how much you’ve missed. Did you know for example that in many parts of the country, people have no option but to send their children to a Catholic school, because there are no other schools? Or that in other places non-baptized children are rejected from their nearest school and may be forced to travel a considerable distance to find a school which will take them? And I have no idea what you think Dubai has to do with this problem.

    4. Clampers Outside!

      1+1 = 2

      C comes after B, and A before B

      Ireland is a secular democratic republic

      Saudi Arabia is a religious kingdom devoid of any democratic rights of the people or as wiki says “Unitary Islamic Absolute monarchy”

      Next week, we can do your 2 times tables

    5. ahjayzis

      “if your not Catholic – dont send your kids to a Catholic school”

      Fair point.

      Only we have no catholic schools, we have public schools run and paid for by everyone, but under the ‘patronage’ of catholics. That’s the difference. I contribute just as much as you – you don’t get to exclude me.

  6. rotide

    No kids so generally I ignore this stuff as it gets tiresome but what exactly is the deal with this.

    Does the catholic church own these schools? Are they running them on behalf of the state? What can be done to fix the problem, is it a case of the state having to build and operate a bunch of extra schools? Because that seems like a waste of rescources when we could just try and remove the baptism rule and have little jimmy/jacinta ignore any religious teachings.

  7. veritas

    what is a catholic school,is it built of Catholic bricks and Catholic concrete and Catholic timber,paid for by the Catholic church ?.
    Or maybe it is a school built with tax money from all the people for all the people and then handed over to the church to run because that is what we have always done .When I contributed to my children’s school I did so because it was the local school and not because I wanted to increase the net worth of the Catholic church.

  8. Gaoithe

    I have no objection to people running Catholic schools and refusing non-Catholic children, as long as they get no State funding whatever.

    1. Alan Sherry

      so the majority of Irish parents want Christian schools, not sure your headline captures that

      What about Catholic schools where the local diocese or parish has taken out a loan to build or extend the school because the state wouldn’t do so. ?

      1. ahjayzis

        Name one school where the church itself has put itself on the line for credit. The schools themselves often take out loans – but the church? Never.

        Also it’s not about majority rule, you can’t majority-vote a human right away, and freedom of religion and the freedom *from* religion is a right. Forcing the kids of people who are not catholic to go through catholic indoctrination is an abuse, whether or not it’s only one or five in a classroom.

        Would putting religious instruction at the beginning/end of the day so as to be avoidable a really big ask in a state-funded school?

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