Paul KeenanAny “whittling down” of religious education in Catholic schools would be “unacceptable”, a leading academic has said.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic this week as the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) finalised changes to the time afforded to certain subjects in primary schools, Dr John Murray of Mater Dei Institute’s Department of Theology stressed that religious education remains “important” within faith schools, and not least to parents who choose to send their children to such schools.
“The importance of religion has to be upheld as a part of our culture and our reality,” Dr Murray said. “If you start whittling that down you send the signal that it’s not important, which is unacceptable.”
While giving nothing away on the substance of changes to come with the NCCA’s proposals – set to be published in the autumn – a spokesperson for the body has already stated: “We will be proposing the direction we think we should be heading in, which is very different to where we currently are.”
Reaction
Much of the media reaction to the NCCA’s timetabling changes has focussed on the daily half hour devoted to religious education in faith schools, with speculation that such teaching could be directly affected by the changes.
In separate reporting on a proposal from Minister for Education Richard Bruton that computer programming be afforded timetabling space, the issue of religious education was tied to that of overloading of teachers who may struggle to accommodate a raft of subjects demanded within the new curriculum.
The indication of a “very different” curriculum comes also as the NCCA is engaged with developing a new primary school subject, Education about Religious Beliefs and Ethics, leading to fears that religious education will be further undermined.
However, Dr Murray pointed out that such a move would adversely affect “the partnership existing between schools and parents in raising children within the faith chosen by those parents”.