Greg DalyExperts in religious education have welcomed reports that Government education advisers are scaling back plans for a new primary school curriculum in world religions and ethics.
A report from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), currently with Education Minister Richard Bruton and based upon a public consultation process on the NCCA’s proposals for an Education about Religions and Beliefs and Ethics (ERBE) programme sparked widespread opposition especially among Catholic bodies.
Education professionals had previously expressed concerns about how a new subject might further burden an already overloaded timetable.
Among those who opposed the proposals were the Catholic Primary School Management Association and the Association of Trustees of Catholic Schools, which described the proposed programmes as serious flawed and possibly unconstitutional.
Justin Harkin of the Diocese of Elphin’s Pastoral and Faith Development Services said that “particularly as a parent” he was relieved that the ERBE proposals appear to have hit a rut.
“The consultation document communicated a very poor understanding of Catholic Education,” he told The Irish Catholic, arguing that the proposals failed to value diversity in a meaningful sense and would have confused children.
Phenomena
“They tended to reduce all major world religions to cultural phenomena and failed to appreciate that parents of various faith traditions could never favour an ethical influence in the lives of our children likely to cause them concern inappropriate to their age and stage of development,” he said.
Prof. Eamonn Conway of Mary Immaculate College in Limerick contested analyses of the situation that suggest ERBE had been intended to supplement denominational faith-based education. “It cannot supplement it; it actually contradicts it,” he told this newspaper, continuing, “What they were looking to do is have Catholic schools both educate people in their own faith and then educate them in contradicting their own faith.”
He cited difficulties for teachers in following claims that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the light” with claims that he is merely “a way, a truth, and a light”.
Rejecting suggestions that the response had been coordinated, Prof. Conway observed that, “from reading carefully, I believe it was a spontaneous reaction to what was being proposed by the NCCA which highlights the vibrancy of Catholic education in a way we might not otherwise have appreciated”.