Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
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1. Introduction
2. Recommendations
2.1. Issue statutory guidelines on respect for all beliefs
2.2. Ensure that school ethos cannot override children’s rights
2.3. Practical arrangements for children who do not attend religious instruction
2.4. Remove admissions discrimination on religious or ethos grounds
2.5. Provide non-denominational schools
2.6. Audit the wellbeing impact of school ethos
2.7. Include nonreligious families in consultation and monitoring
2.8. Inspect equality of belonging
3. Wellbeing requires real belonging, not merely welcoming language
4. The legal contradiction at the centre of school wellbeing
5. Admissions discrimination undermines belonging
6. The right to not attend religious instruction must be practical and stigma-free
7. The ethos of schools can shape the wellbeing curriculum itself
8. UN and Council of Europe recommendations
9. Conclusion
1. Introduction
Atheist Ireland welcomes the opportunity to make this submission to the Department of Education and Youth’s consultation on wellbeing in education.
The Department has stated that children and young people learn more effectively when they experience a sense of belonging in school, have confidence in themselves, and feel supported in their school communities. The Department’s review will inform the next Wellbeing in Education policy and implementation plan up to 2030 and beyond.
Atheist Ireland promotes an ethical, secular State that respects equally the human rights of atheists and secularists as well as those with religious beliefs. We work with religious minority groups, including Evangelical Christians and Ahmadi Muslims, on issues where the State privileges larger religions over smaller religions and non-religious philosophical beliefs.
This submission focuses on a structural problem that directly affects children’s wellbeing: many children are required, in practice, to attend publicly funded schools whose ethos (Characteristic Spirit – S.15.2 (b) Education Act 1998) does not reflect the beliefs of their families. Ireland has denominational, interdenominational, and multi-denominational schools, but no publicly funded non-denominational school sector.
All schools are registered with the Department as either denominational, multi-denominational, or inter-denominational. There is no access to an objective, critical and pluralistic education in any of these schools as per Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention or Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights.
This means that many atheist, secular, minority faith, and mixed-belief families have no realistic local alternative to a publicly funded school whose ethos reflects their family beliefs. That affects children’s sense of belonging, equality, identity, and emotional safety.
2. Recommendations
Atheist Ireland recommends that the Department of Education and Youth include the following commitments in the next Wellbeing in Education policy and implementation plan.
2.1. Issue statutory guidelines on respect for all beliefs
The Department should issue statutory guidelines giving practical effect to Section 15.2(e) of the Education Act 1998. These should explain how Boards of Management must respect and promote respect for the diversity of values, beliefs, traditions, languages and ways of life in society, including atheist, secular, minority religious, and mixed-belief families.
2.2. Ensure that school ethos cannot override children’s rights
The Department should make clear that no patron ethos may be interpreted or applied in a way that undermines a child’s rights to equality, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion or belief, privacy, dignity, and wellbeing.
2.3. Practical arrangements for children who do not attend religious instruction
The Department should introduce statutory guidelines that require all schools to provide meaningful, supervised, educational alternatives for children who do not attend religious instruction, education, worship, faith formation, sacramental preparation, or other ethos-specific activities that are against the conscience of children and their parents. These arrangements should be practical, resourced, stigma-free, and communicated clearly to parents. Section 62-7(n) of the Education Admissions to Schools Act 2018 has failed in its purpose to require schools to put the arrangements for not attending religious instruction in their Admission Policies.
2.4. Remove admissions discrimination on religious or ethos grounds
The Department should support legislative reform to remove religious and ethos-based discrimination in school admissions, as recommended by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
2.5. Provide non-denominational schools
The Department should develop a time-bound strategy, with adequate resources, to provide non-denominational schools. Multi-denominational schools are not the same as non-denominational schools. Multi-denominational means just that, multi-religious. Atheism and secularism are not denominations. Families should have access to schools where the State is neutral between religion and philosophical beliefs and where children have access to an objective, critical and pluralistic education.
2.6. Audit the wellbeing impact of school ethos
The Department should examine how a patron’s ethos affects the delivery of the Wellbeing curriculum, including SPHE, relationships and sexuality education, ethical understanding, identity, family, belonging, and citizenship.
2.7. Include nonreligious families in consultation and monitoring
The Department should explicitly include atheist, secular, minority faith, and mixed-belief families in consultation, focus groups, surveys, and monitoring of wellbeing policy.
2.8. Inspect equality of belonging
The Inspectorate should assess whether children from minority belief backgrounds experience equal belonging in school, including whether they are positively represented, whether their parents’ convictions are respected, and whether they suffer stigma and discrimination during religious instruction or ethos-based activities.
3. Wellbeing requires real belonging, not merely welcoming language
The primary Wellbeing Specification states that wellbeing is connected to children’s physical, social, relational, emotional and spiritual development, and that wellbeing includes a sense of purpose, connection, and belonging to a wider community. It also states that the specification promotes inclusive learning environments based on human rights and equality, recognises the diversity of cultures, identities, backgrounds and families in Irish classrooms, and says children should not be discriminated against on grounds including religion.
These are positive aims. However, they cannot be fully realised while the legal and policy framework of the Irish education system continues to allow publicly funded schools to integrate a patron’s ethos into the school environment and the state curriculum, while providing no effective Departmental guidance on how schools must respect the beliefs of children and parents who do not share that ethos.
Schools are not legally obliged to ensure access to children of an objective, critical and pluralistic education which is a General Principle of Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention and Article 18 of the ICCPR. A look at the Concluding Observations of the UN and Council of European over the years in relation to the Irish education system tells us how the system is failing to protect the human rights of all children.
A child does not feel fully included merely because a school says that everyone is welcome. A child feels included when the school’s practices, curriculum, ceremonies, relationships, policies, and daily language show that the child’s family beliefs are treated with equal respect.
For atheist and secular children, and for many minority religious children, the repeated message is often different. They may be told that they are welcome, but the school Admission policy, RSE Policy, ethos, prayers, religious instruction, religious symbols, sacramental preparation, patron programmes, and school ceremonies may all communicate that the school community has a “normal” belief identity from which they differ.
4. The legal contradiction at the centre of school wellbeing
Section 15 of the Education Act 1998 creates a tension that the Department has never properly resolved. On the one hand, a Board of Management must uphold, and is accountable to the patron for upholding, the characteristic spirit of the school as determined by the cultural, educational, moral, religious, social, linguistic, and spiritual values and traditions of that school. On the other hand, Section 15.2(e) requires Boards to have regard to the principles and requirements of a democratic society and to respect and promote respect for the diversity of values, beliefs, traditions, languages and ways of life in society.
In practice, the Department has issued no statutory guidelines explaining how Boards of Management should reconcile these duties where a child’s family beliefs conflict with the patron’s ethos.
This absence of guidance leaves schools, teachers, parents, and children in an unfair position. Boards of Management are required legally under Section 15-2(b) of the Education Act 1998 to uphold the ethos of the patron and to respect all beliefs (S.15-2(e)). But they are not told what that respect requires in daily school life. The European Court has defined ‘respect’ in its case law. It says that “respect means more than acknowledge or take into account.
The European court held as a General Principle that:
(c) Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 does not permit a distinction to be drawn between religious instruction and other subjects. It enjoins the State to respect parents’ convictions, be they religious or philosophical, throughout the entire State education programme (see Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pedersen, cited above, p. 25, §51). That duty is broad in its extent as it applies not only to the content of education and the manner of its provision but also to the performance of all the “functions” assumed by the State.
The verb “respect” means more than “acknowledge” or “take into account”. In addition to a primarily negative undertaking, it implies some positive obligation on the part of the State. The term “conviction”, taken on its own, is not synonymous with the words “opinions” and “ideas”. It denotes views that attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance (see Valsamis, cited above, pp. 2323-24, §§ 25 and 27, and Campbell and Cosans, cited above, pp. 16-17, §§ 36-37).
The word ‘respect’ is a verb and involves all the functions assumed by the State. There is a positive obligation on behalf of the state to ‘respect’ parents’ convictions.
(2) Article 18 protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief. The terms “belief” and “religion” are to be broadly construed. Article 18 is not limited in its application to traditional religions or to religions and beliefs with institutional characteristics or practices analogous to those of traditional religions. The Committee therefore views with concern any tendency to discriminate against any religion or belief for any reason, including the fact that they are newly established, or represent religious minorities that may be the subject of hostility on the part of a predominant religious community.
14.The Committee recommends that the Education Act 1998 be amended or at least reviewed, so that ethos can no longer be used as a barrier to the effective, objective and factual teaching of the RSE and SPHE curriculum to which every student is entitled.
15.The Committee recommends that the necessary legislative amendments required to remove the role of ethos as a barrier to the objective and factual delivery of the RSE and SPHE curriculums be made as soon as possible and at the latest by the end of 2019.
17.The Committee recommends that the specific policy issues raised in the report should be integrated to all curriculums where appropriate and form part of a whole school approach.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
