A Dublin mother told today’s Sunday Times that her son was rejected from two schools because he was not baptised.
Carol McInerney, a meditation teacher, told the paper she will be supporting a new nationwide campaign by the Humanist Association of Ireland to highlight discrimination against children who are not eligible to attend their local school because they have not been baptised.
McInerney said:
“My son was rejected by two religious-run schools in Dublin… a Church of Ireland school refused him because he had no siblings attending, and he wasn’t a Protestant. A Catholic school refused him because he had no baptism certificate.”
Another mother, Jessica Chinery told how a year before her son, Casper, was due to start school she called the two local religious-run national schools to inquire about enrolment.
“I was told that as soon as they have a baptismal certificate, they could let me know if he had a place. I was shocked. They might as well have asked me the colour of my skin.”
Currently, about 95 per cent of primary schools in Ireland are controlled by either the Catholic church or the Church of Ireland. According to the Citizens Information:
“The vast majority of primary schools in Ireland are privately owned and supported by the different churches. The State pays the bulk of the building and running costs and a local contribution is made towards the running costs.”
This is why HAI’s Director of Ceremonies, Brian Whiteside is launching a national poster campaign to highlight this issue. He told the paper:
“There are still a number of areas where the non-religious are put at an unfair disadvantage and one of them is the enrolment policies of our state-funded primary schools.”
Currently, legislation allows churches in their patronage of primary schools to give preference of children of their own religion. Whiteside stated that it was unacceptable for people to be forced to baptise their children “simply to get them a place in state-funded primary schools”.
Paul Rowe, CEO of the Educate Together schools which accept children regardless of religious background says that they are “between four and six times oversubscribed for places” currently. He believes that attitudes are shifting regarding the relationship between religion and education.
“There is a sense that parents want to choose an optimum environment for children who grow up into a diverse and globalised world.”
For more information on the HAI’s campaign visit here.
