Atheist Ireland | Education Archives

06/05/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Homework Pass ruling has lessons for the state, school boards, principals, and teachers

A recent case at the Workplace Relations Commission has found that Yellow Furze National School in Meath discriminated on religious grounds against a family that had no religious belief. The school claimed at the WRC that the case was unfounded. Most schools are unable to recognise religious discrimination when it ...

01/05/2020 1 Comment Atheist Ireland

WRC rules that ‘homework pass for mass’ is religious discrimination

The Workplace Relations Commission has found that Yellow Furze National School in Meath discriminated on religious grounds against a family, in a case that Atheist Ireland raised publicly last September. The school is under Catholic patronage, and it gave homework passes to children who attended Catholic religious services. But it ...

29/04/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

Catholic schools defying new law by not including opt-out details in admissions policies

The Catholic Church is still trying to undermine the right of parents to opt their children out of religion classes. They are now trying to ensure that the arrangements for opting out are kept secret and that parents are not consulted. This is contrary to the Education (Admissions to Schools) ...

25/04/2020 No Comments Atheist Ireland

How can a five-year-old child undermine a school’s religious ethos?

Despite what some people think, the Education (Admissions to Schools) Act 2018 has not removed the religious discrimination in access to schools in Ireland. Minority faith primary schools and any religious secondary school can still give preference to co-religionists. And Catholic schools can still refuse access to children who they ...

19/02/2020 Atheist Ireland

The Constantly Shifting Ethos of ETB Schools and Colleges

The Department of Education has told Atheist Ireland that the Minister for Education, Joe McHugh, gave incorrect information about the patronage of ETB schools, which we reported on in an article on 10 January. Minister McHugh was answering a parliamentary question on 6 December 2019 from Ruth Coppinger TD. It ...

10/01/2020 Atheist Ireland

Minister confirms that many ETB schools are denominational

UPDATE: The Department of Education has told Atheist Ireland that the Minister for Education gave incorrect information in the response to this parliamentary question. You can read about the updated situation here. The Minister for Education Joe McHugh has confirmed that a quarter of ETB Community Colleges are denominational (61 ...

11/12/2019 Atheist Ireland

NCCA report avoids the question of how to deliver objective sex education

The NCCA has failed to recommend that the Education Act be amended to ensure that students get objective sex education that is not influenced by a religious school ethos. Its new report has simply described the problem of ethos, instead of addressing how to resolve it. And the Minister for ...

24/11/2019 Atheist Ireland

Religion should not, and can not, be made compulsory in Irish schools

Michael Nugent was on Newstalk Radio this week, debating whether religion should be made compulsory in Irish schools. Alan Whelan of the Catholic Secondary Schools Parents Partnership argued that it should be. Religion should not be compulsory in Irish schools, because it would be a bad idea, and it can ...

15/10/2019 Atheist Ireland

UN to raise racial and religious discrimination in the Irish Education system

In Geneva this December, Ireland will be examined by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Last Friday, the UN CERD Committee published a List of Themes for the examination of Ireland in December. Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland,  and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community ...

15/10/2019 Atheist Ireland

Catholic School lesson plan promotes sexist, violent, antisemitic, forged Bible passage

A lesson plan in the Catholic Grow in Love series, for sixth class students, has the students acting out the Bible story about “the woman caught in adultery." This will be taught in about 90% of State-funded primary schools in Ireland, and teachers who want a job in these schools ...