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This is a crucial area for Humanists in Northern
Ireland. Education plays a very important part in Humanist thought. We believe
that it is the duty of every community to make the future better than the
present. Education is an investment, not only or even mainly in a narrow
economic sense but also socially and morally. It should try to fulfil at least
three basic functions: the development of talents and skills; the fostering of
independence of thought; and the improvement in moral and social behaviour. It
is also essential that children should be taught in a relaxed, friendly
atmosphere to encourage them to love and be loved, to enjoy a social life
The vast majority of schools in Northern Ireland
are segregated along religious lines and although the number of integrated
schools is increasing there is evidence that in many of them religion assumes an
even greater importance than ever .
According to the League Tables,
Ulster schoolchildren are often top of the class. For this we congratulate
ourselves on the allegedly superior nature of our education system. Yet in some
ways we do not treat our children as if they actually deserved this honour.
Indeed, in one key area we seem to assume that they are dunces. That area is
Religious Education.
Before considering the specific case
of Northern Ireland, we should first set it in the UK context. Britain is at
odds with other democracies such as France, India and the USA in making religion
compulsory in schools. Indeed, whereas in America ‑ to cite just one stark
contrast ‑ it is against the law to introduce religion into state schools,
in Britain it is actually against the law NOT to introduce it! Recent reforms
left the 1944 (1947 in Ulster) Act largely untouched, with religion being
designated as a 'compulsory additional subject' and schools still legally
obliged to hold a daily act of worship in morning assembly.
The law does not in fact compel
children to attend either of these activities but instead empowers parents to
compel them. It then makes the assumption that parents are indeed compelling
them unless they formally state in writing that their child is ‘contracting
out’. It is really astonishing that, say, young adults of 18 still at school
who have so many other legal rights nevertheless have no say at all in this
matter. They may decide to marry before 18, but it is their parents who have the
right to decide for them whether they may opt out of religious 'instruction' in
school. This is a crazy legal situation which cannot continue.
What has daily worship in schools got
to do with education anyway? Even some religious groups and individuals like the
The situation in Northern Ireland is
made even worse than in the UK as a whole by the treatment here of RE. There is
no central syllabus for RE in England and Wales, and English education
authorities draw up their own syllabus. Take, for example, the Agreed Syllabus
for the London borough of Hounslow. It is entitled Widening Horizons, a title
which itself speaks volumes. It aims to develop and extend knowledge and
awareness of belief systems which cover the major world faiths and life stances.
Its core areas include Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism
‑ and Humanism.
In marked contrast we in Ulster have
a Core Syllabus which seeks not to open children's minds but instead strives to
keep them firmly closed. The main reason is that it was drafted by the main
Christian churches. In their wisdom' they presumed that since most adults here
are Christians, the Core Syllabus should be exclusively Christian also. So much
for the rights of the child and minorities.
The rights of the child do not really
figure very prominently in Ulster's dominant educational philosophy. An
ingrained feature of both Protestant and Catholic ideology is the notion that
schools have a fundamental duty to provide young people with a 'Christian'
education. But what precisely does this mean? What is a characteristically
Christian form of schooling? It would be rather absurd to claim, for example,
that there was a distinctly Christian form of Mathematics or Geography. Nor is
there any readily discernible Christian approach to punishment and discipline.
And there is no peculiarly Christian view of what constitutes a balanced
curriculum.
In fact, the true meaning of a
'Christian education in Ulster is much less substantive than this analysis might
suggest. It is quite simply that children should be 'educated' in the Christian
faith. What message does this restrictiveness convey to Moslems, Hindus and
members of other faiths ‑ not to mention the 127o or more who have no
religion? In other words, it is a perfect example of what has been called the
primitive concept of education ‑ the view a primitive tribe might have
when it seeks to pass on to the next generation its rituals, its way of farming,
and so on, according to its own customs and beliefs. Not the least problem with
this concept of education is the fact that in Ulster there are two warring
tribes and two distinct sets of Christian beliefs.
James Madison, author of the First
Amendment of the American Constitution, asked a pertinent question: "Who
does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in
exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any
particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?" Owing to
the almost total tribal segregation in Ulster schools, covering about 97% of
young people, this is precisely what has happened, with the version of
Christianity promoted depending on the denomination of the particular school.
The frightening extent of this tribal
indoctrination is indicated by the almost total absence, as revealed in surveys,
of any attempt to discuss the basic beliefs of the neighbouring tribe, In the
early 1970s, for example, Greer discovered from questioning Heads of RE
departments that at Sixth Form level the beliefs of Hindus, Buddhists and even
Humanists were often mentioned, but "no mention was made of the problems of
comparative religion which lies at the root of so many social problems in
Northern Ireland, the Protestant‑Roman Catholic division". If this
holds true today, and one suspects that it is still largely the case, then
Ulster children grow up in almost total ignorance of the religious beliefs of
the other basic strand of Christianity.
It seems that the dominant ideology
of a 'Christian' education is narrowly conceived in terms not just of instilling
Christianity to the exclusion of other faiths and life stances but also
specifically of instilling one brand of Christianity to the exclusion of the
other. There is absolutely nothing to counter the widespread assumption on the
one side that the pope is the antichrist or on the other that Protestants are
not 'real' Christians. Here is a shocking dereliction of duty by the main
churches in the face of 25 years of sectarian strife and bigotry, even their conception of Christianity
in the new Core Syllabus should be strongly challenged. It is as if Darwin,
Strauss, Schweitzer and a host of other scholars and scientists had never
existed. For this Syllabus adopts an obsolete, fundamentalist approach to the
Bible, implicitly rejecting evolution and endorsing Adam and Eve. It thus
reflects one notable defect of Irish Christianity in general, namely its very
simplicity. It merely serves to perpetuate a frightening certitude about what
constitutes true belief and an almost willful refusal to admit that Christianity
is open to doubt.
This kind of denominational
brainwashing negates the whole purpose of an advanced educational system.
Education is certainly not about bringing up a child within any particular
faith. It is about the opportunities for a child to learn of many different
systems of beliefs and attitudes of mind, so that he or she can make a personal
choice among them. This is surely one of the basic rights of a child ~ rights
which are all too easily forgotten in Northern Ireland. Children are individual
people, not private possessions of their parents or fodder to swell church
membership. The latter will naturally prejudice children in favour of their own
beliefs, so the school has a vital role in redressing the balance by making
other views known. Ulster's schools singularly fail to fulfil this role.
This appalling situation is itself a
strong argument for abolishing 'Religious Education' throughout the UK and for
substituting 'Moral Education' or 'Education in Stances for Living' as a subject
in the curriculum. Religious pleading should be left to the home and the church.
Children should certainly learn about religion in school, but on a comparative
basis or in the context of examining various alternative belief systems. This
comparative perspective is clearly necessary in view not only of the obviously
plural nature of modern Britain but also of the deep religious polarisation in
the province of Ulster.
Ulster children grow up in almost
total ignorance of the religious beliefs of the other basic strand of
Christianity.
Traditionalists will recoil in horror
from any proposal to abolish 'Religious Education. They see morality and
religion as being inseparable, the one flowing from the other. Abolishing RE
would mean to them a loss of any effective ethical teaching and therefore a
further decline in moral standards in society generally. There is one, and only
one, sense in which they may be right. To link moral education so closely with a
set of beliefs which are themselves widely in question in the modern world runs
the risk that, if the child comes to discard these beliefs, then the moral
values associated with them will also be rejected. But this is another argument
in favour of treating the moral sphere as independent of religion and of
granting to Moral Education the same autonomy as any other subject in the
curriculum
In any case, the record of
Christianity in Ulster and elsewhere is hardly a model of morality or humanity.
It has certainly not provided a reliable guide to the development of values such
as independent thought, respect for truth and reason, open-rnindedness,
tolerance and respect for life. If anything, it has in practice promoted the
Research in fact points to the
relative moral naiveté and backwardness of Ulster children compared to their
counterparts in Britain and America. The roots of this ethical underdevelopment
do not lie in any intellectual inferiority on the part of the province's young.
They lie, rather, in the pressures ‑ from the home, the church and, sad to
say, the school ‑ to conform to traditional modes of thought. And not the
least cause of this conformity is an overdose of religion in 'Religious
Education' and a marked deficiency of secular moral teaching. On the British
mainland RE in many schools has, in fact, broadened away from the inculcation of
a distinct set of beliefs and in some areas has become Moral Education in all
but name. This has not yet happened. to any real extent in Northern Ireland's
schools, where ethics are still largely filtered through a religious prism.
But
Moral Education is not just a subject for the school curriculum. It is also an
aspect of the school itself For it also lies in the daily influences and
experiences through which children learn the basics of self-respect, joy
in co-operation, concern
The way forward in Ulster education
is to establish schools that are both integrated and secular. Ideally, Humanists
would like to see state subsidies removed from voluntary schools altogether, or
they should be nationalised with compensation, As far as possible, integration
should be on a basis of numerical equality of Protestant and Catholic children,
who each represent about 509o' of the total child population. Both collective
worship and RE should ideally be abolished and replaced with agreed syllabuses
of Moral Education or Education in Stances for Living.
These proposals are clearly radical,
but it cannot be emphasised enough that the segregated and
church‑dominated system of education in Northern Ireland does greatly
contribute to the province's Problem, and only when Protestants and Catholics
mix freely and equally from nursery school level upwards is there likely to be
any real progress towards a harmonious community.
The
way forward in Ulster education is to establish schools that are both integrated
and secular.
Yet there are signs that the main
churches are endeavouring to tighten their grip on schools. The main Protestant
churches, through a Transferor Representatives Handbook, are encouraging
governors of state schools to appoint teachers and principals who support
Protestant values, and Catholic schools blatantly advertise for teachers who
share the Catholic ethos of the school authorities. Even the integrated movement
is being targeted. Protestant churches are encouraging some state schools to
acquire integrated status in the hope that they will continue to educate mostly
Protestants and instil a Protestant ethos.
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