Category Archives: Education

Secular Sunday #5 – Make Your Voice Heard

By Secular Sunday | Published: January 29, 2012

Wakey Wakey! It’s time for another Secular Sunday.

First things first:

TODAY at 2:00 pm, Atheist Ireland presents “Is Anything Sacred?”, a public discussion of Irish and international blasphemy laws. Our speakers are two world-class experts on blasphemy law: Austin Dacey, Ph.D. from New York, who represents the International Humanist and Ethical Union at the United Nations; and Professor David Nash of Oxford Brookes University in England, who is working with Atheist Ireland on our campaign to repeal the Irish blasphemy law. Join us in the O’Callaghan Alexander Hotel (map) from 2:00. Read More »

Also posted in Blasphemy, Meetings, News, Secular Sunday | 3 Comments

We must respect human rights of parents who want secular schools

By Atheist Ireland | Published: December 15, 2011

The Irish Independent today published this article by Michael Nugent about the human right to a secular education. It includes the key points that Atheist Ireland made in our response to the interim report of the Forum for Patronage and Pluralism in Irish Education.

The final report will be given to the Minister for Education later this month. If you live in Ireland, please contact the Minister and your local TDs, and say that you want the Minister to respect the rights of secular parents when he responds to the final report.

We must respect human rights of parents who want secular schools

Most of the 3,300 primary schools in the Republic of Ireland are run by church patrons, about 97% by the Catholic church. These schools use an integrated curriculum, in which Catholic teaching permeates every subject. They are legally allowed to discriminate on religious grounds, and it is often impossible for parents to opt their children out of religious
instruction.
Read More »

Also posted in Secularism | 3 Comments

Atheist Ireland response to Forum on Patronage and Pluralism

By Michael Nugent | Published: December 1, 2011

Ensuring Effective Remedies for an Objective, Critical and Pluralistic Secular Education

Atheist Ireland has responded to the interim report of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism. The Forum is to send its final report to the Minister for Education by the end of December.

We have four overriding recommendations for the final report.

* To comply with your terms of reference, your advice must be stronger and must be enforceable. You are mandated to advise on how best to “ensure” that certain outcomes can happen, not simply on how best to make those outcomes more likely.

* The final report must include effective remedies that enable parents and students to vindicate in practice and law their right to ensure that the education of their children is in conformity with their convictions, as enshrined in Human Rights treaties and based on rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.

* Whatever their model of patronage, the State must ensure that all schools convey all parts of the curriculum in an “objective, critical and pluralistic manner”, as recommended by the Irish Human Rights Commission, as enshrined in the Toledo Guiding Principles, and as ruled on by the ECHR.

* Ensuring “a sufficiently diverse number and range of primary schools catering for all religions and none” must in practice ensure that secular non-denominational schools are widely available in all regions of the State, as noted by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

We also make other specific recommendations throughout the response, including on ERB, opting out, the right to private and family life and access to schools.

You can read our full response here.

It’s on our campaign website for a secular education, TeachDontPreach.ie.

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Atheist Ireland submission to Department of Education on school enrolment

By Michael Nugent | Published: October 28, 2011

This is a link to Atheist Ireland’s submission to the Department of Education’s discussion paper on a regulatory framework for school enrolment, submitted to the Department today.

Atheist Ireland submission to Department of Education on school enrolment

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Atheist Ireland meets Irish Government Forum on Primary Education Part 2

By Michael Nugent | Published: September 9, 2011

Here is a summary of the questions and answers part of the meeting last Tuesday between Michael Nugent and Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland, and the Department of Education’s Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector.

We were questioned by the Advisory Group to the Forum, which consists of Chairperson Dr. John Coolahan, Professor Emeritus at NUI Maynooth; Dr. Caroline Hussey, former Registrar and Deputy President, UCD; Fionnuala Kilfeather, former Chief Executive of the National Primary Parents Council; and the Secretary to the Forum, Breda Naughton.

You can read the summary on our secular education campaign website Teach Don’t Preach.

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Atheist Ireland meets Irish Government Forum on Primary Education

By Michael Nugent | Published: September 7, 2011

Yesterday, Tuesday September 6, Michael Nugent and Jane Donnelly attended the Department of Education’s Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector. We were there to elaborate on, and answer questions about, the written submission that Atheist Ireland previously made to the Forum.

You can read more details about this session on our secular education campaign website Teach Don’t Preach.

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Teaching about Religions and Beliefs

By Grania | Published: June 22, 2011

by Jane Donnelly

The Mater Dei Institute is at it again.

Link to the pdf of their Submission to the Forum on Education

In their Submission to the Forum on Education they again recommend the Toledo Guiding Principles but state that this education cannot be adequately described by the use of the terms such as “objective”.

These people even quote from the Toledo Guiding Principles but conveniently leave out Page 68 – State neutrality and opt out rights.

“Under International Standards, states have considerable latitude with respect to providing religious education but may not seek to indoctrinate pupils in a particular worldview through the educational system against the wishes of the pupils’ parents. The European Court of human Rights has made clear that:-

The State, in fulfilling the functions assumed by it in regard to education and teaching, must take care that information or knowledge included in the curriculum is conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner. The state is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might not be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. This is the limit that must not be exceeded.

The State may satisfy this duty of neutrality either by designing a curriculum that is itself sufficiently impartial and balanced or, in those instances in which the state provides instruction in a particular religion or belief, by granting rights to opt out on the ground of conscientious objection. This right must be realizable in practice, and not a mere theoretical possibility. Moreover, the requisite neutrality would be compromised if pupils were subjected to any disadvantage discrimination or stigma on account of the exercise of this right to be exempted from such classes, or elements of classes.”

What do they not understand about the words ‘objective’ and this is the limit that must not be exceeded. This is something that we must be very careful about as Atheist Ireland supports the Toledo Guiding Principles. We need to ensure that if the Toledo Guiding Principles are introduced it is not the Toledo Guiding Principles according to the Mater Dei Institute which is a foundation of the Archdiocese of Dublin.

Also posted in Politics | Tagged Education | 2 Comments

Transcripts of WAC talks from ILCAFT & AAU

By Grania | Published: June 9, 2011

Michael Mpagi Kirumira from AAU was unable to make it to the Conference at the last minute, but he sent us his speech which was read out to the audience by Stuart Bechman. We also have the script of Roger Lepeix of ILCAFT who addressed the Conference as well.

Hello Fellow Atheists,

Greetings from the Atheist Association of Uganda. It’s a pleasure to know that we, in Uganda can have a chance to write to this congregation of bright minds. It’s very hard to imagine how life is with other people who see life just as we see it. This was going to be my speech – had I made it to this event! A friend of mine, once told me that there’s only two curses, one is to be born in Africa and to be poor (I do not believe in strong holds and curses but to give you a greater understanding, I have used the words.) Since year 2000, I have received many invitations to speak in conferences, but all my visas are denied, simply because I am poorer – most EU states, Australia, USA and Canada, all think that I will remain in their country. Am not sure why they judge me like that.

Am writing from Uganda, a country whose president (President Museveni), his wife, and the first daughters, are pastors and run a church alongside the State issues. Their church is called The Covenant Nations Church. This church is under Museveni’s daughter Patience Rwaboogo Museveni who is a pastor and her church service airs on LTV here in Kampala. Museveni’s supporters have now created a cult that you may call “Musevenism”. Museveni himself is like a god. We have heard President Museveni himself telling Ugandans to trust and respect God by not challenging him on many issues failing our country. His wife Janet Museveni is the patron of all Pentecostal churches of Uganda and when she was running for Member of Parliament for Ruhama county, she told the masses that she is being sent by God to run for a political office and that she has God’s phone number. Despite of all those allegations, their regime is the most corrupt and oppressive Government. In simple terms, it’s a group of criminals running the Nation’s affairs and, worst of it all, they are supported by Ireland, USA, Australia, and many more. Since year 1994, President Museveni has donated public funds worthy millions of shillings to religious groups and is publically proud of it.

Also posted in Atheism, Conference | Leave a comment

Parents talk about the obstacles in obtaining a secular education for their child in Ireland

By Grania | Published: May 9, 2011

Alex Meehan of the Sunday Business Post interviewed some parents recently who have persevered in trying to get a secular education for their children. Although parents have the right to ask for their children to be exempted from religious classes at school in Ireland, those who opt for this meet with varying degrees of accommodation from schools and communities alike. Some are indifferent, others very accommodating, and a few even hostile.

One father, whose young child has been shunned by his local community, had this to say:

“People seem to think that I was motivated by wanting to cause trouble, but they have no idea of the lengths I went to to try to solve the problem before going public with it. They don’t know the full story, and they don’t seem to want to find out. It’s very strange that over a difference in opinion, a child gets punished. I’m very surprised by that. I thought we could all just agree to differ and move on, but apparently not.”

Read the whole article here.

Parents interested in finding out more about this issue and their rights can do so by emailing us here, joining our forums or finding us on Facebook.

Also posted in Politics, Secularism | 2 Comments

Atheist Ireland response to European Court ruling on crucifixes in classrooms

By Michael Nugent | Published: March 18, 2011

The European Court of Human Rights today ruled that Italian State schools may display crucifixes on classroom walls, overturning an earlier judgment to the contrary.

Today’s judgment lays down many important points of human rights law in favour of secularism, and it leaves open the possibility of further legal challenges about crucifixes in classrooms where the overall school environment is not secular.

The judgment highlights the obligation of States to convey school teaching in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner, enabling pupils to develop a critical mind particularly with regard to religion in a calm atmosphere free of any proselytism.

The Court found that it is up to each State to decide how to treat this issue, as long as they do not exceed the limit of pursuing an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions.

In this particular case, because the Italian education system is already secular, with an overall school environment that respects all religions, and because the crucifix is not associated with compulsory teaching of Christianity, it found that the display of a crucifix could be seen as a passive symbol.

But these circumstances are not the case in Ireland, where most primary schools are not religiously neutral, but have a religious ethos that permeates the entire school day, and where the Catholic Church itself accepts that the right to opt out of this religious ethos is not always possible in practice.

Just last week the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination “noted with concern that the education system (in Ireland) is still largely denominational and is mainly dominated by the Catholic Church.” This is the fourth time in recent years that UN bodies have raised the issue of freedom of conscience in Irish schools.

Also significantly, the Court today rejected the argument by Italy that the crucifix is not a religious symbol, but is a cultural and ethical one. This is an important victory for secularism, as it prevents religious symbols from being introduced by stealth into secular environments.

Also posted in Secularism | 2 Comments