'Common' schools best in transmitting civic values [IrishTimes]
- Published: 24 June 2011
OPINION: School patronage in a republic should hinge on turning out children who are good citizens
THE ESTABLISHMENT of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector by Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn has brought the question of religious denominational schooling into even sharper focus.
It is widely accepted that the current arrangement – where Catholic patrons run more than 90 per cent of primary schools – is inappropriate. Perhaps the most critical point to be considered by the forum is that it is inconceivable that the State could ever provide an array of denominational schools in every locality to cater for the particular religious or non-religious beliefs of every family in that area.
This belies the widely subscribed-to argument that the value of religious liberty requires the State to provide Catholic schools in every locality. Citizens of a republic enjoy religious liberty on an equal basis, and so, if the value requires the provision of Catholic schools in every locality, it similarly requires the provision of many different kinds of schools in every locality, simply by virtue of the fact that there is a diversity of religious and non-religious beliefs all across the State.
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