Bruton makes work for atheist pupils’ idle hands
Students who sit out religion will have to take alternative classes
HUNDREDS of secondary school pupils who wish to opt out of religion classes will, under new rules, have to take up an alternative lesson.
The young atheists of Ireland will no longer be able to just sit in study halls, a diktat from Education Minister Richard Bruton proclaims.
Mr Bruton is to tell schools today they must immediately provide for students who choose to opt out of religious instruction an alternative class.
Sitting in study halls, libraries or at the back of classrooms is no longer acceptable, it is stated.
The plan, which had been previously mooted for multi-denominational schools, is set to take effect from today and Mr Bruton will outline the new rules in a circular to be sent to schools today.
The circular will be distributed to more than 350 multi-denominational Education and Training Board and community post-primary schools around the country.
And it will instruct them about a ‘new approach to the arrangements that are made for religious instruction and worship in the schools’. This plan was discussed late last year, but from today schools must timetable alternative tuition throughout the school year for pupils who indicate they do not wish to participate in religion classes.
Up until now, it’s understood it was not unusual for pupils who requested to opt out of classes to alternatively participate in study periods or to remain at the back of classrooms. But from now on, schools will be required to consult with parents and that ‘instead of waiting for a parent to request a withdrawal and then having to make alternative arrangements for the pupil for the class periods concerned, a school must establish the wishes of parents’.
Mr Bruton said these changes ‘will ensure that children who do not want to participate in religious instruction will no longer be sitting at the back of the class or confined to the library’.
The department says that parents’ wishes ‘will have to be established as part of the process for planning and organising of subject selection’ and they will no longer have to request a withdrawal.
This circular stipulates that ‘parents must be made aware that such alternative tuition is available and be asked to choose between religious instruction and the alternative subjects offered by the school’.
‘Once an opt-out has been expressed it should endure in subsequent years unless otherwise advised by the parents.’
The department said: ‘It may have been reasonable when these schools were originally established for a school to assume that its pupil population was predominantly Catholic and to arrange religious instruction accordingly.
‘However, this is no longer an appropriate approach. In a changing context, the constitutional right not to attend religious instruction must be given effect through changed practices.’
While the circular is set to take effect ‘immediately’, the department said ‘it will take some time for schools to reflect the new arrangements in the work of revising new timetables for the 2018/19 school year’.
And the boards of management of each school will bear the responsibility of ensuring that the ‘new arrangements are implemented’.
There are 271 ETB post-primary schools and 82 community postprimary schools in Ireland, the department added. The religion classes referred to are separate to the religious education exam subjects which students may choose – if offered by schools – for Junior and Leaving Certificate exams.
As part of the new arrangements, schools are told that ‘best practice’ in relation to ‘making appropriate arrangements for withdrawal from religious worship or events’ would be to provide parents with information about the frequency, timing, duration and nature of such events or services at the start of the school year.
‘No longer appropriate’