Who teaches the teachers?

Dear Editor, On Friday as my wife and I waited our turn to meet with subject teachers at a Catholic secondary school ‘Parents’ Evening’ I read Paul Keenan’s article ‘Students would benefit from Religious Ed as a core subject’ (IC 24/11/2016).

We received great subject feedback from the various teachers until we came to the religion teacher, who explained that she had no training in the subject. When we asked about the curriculum we were told that lessons consisted of discussions on a series of worksheets. We were told that there is no RE-trained teacher in the school and that RE was not an examination subject.

This situation is not unique to a single school and contrasts massively with our previous English Catholic schools’ experience where all students take a full RE examination at age 16 and where 10% of curriculum time must be devoted to RE. The most recent statistics on the website of the Catholic Education Council for England and Wales show that there is on average of more than four RE specialist teachers in their schools.

We do we fail our Irish children in our unwillingness to teach them the truths of our faith?

Yours etc.,

Alan Whelan, 

Killarney, Co. Kerry.