RE Northern Ireland

Is support for RE in schools in Northern Ireland on the wane?  It is possible to think that results of a recent survey commissioned by the Integrated Education Fund suggest so. Only a small minority of those surveyed (20%) said they want to see schools or the state as having the main responsibility for religious education and fewer than half (47%) believe the state should fund religious education. But what do these figures mean? A closer look shows that the language used in the survey is somewhat ambiguous, and the reporting potentially confusing. On the issue of funding religious education, for example, the question states:  In your opinion should schools providing one type of religious education and one type of religious observance be funded by ...?  In other words, the focus of the question is about non-inclusive faith-based education rather than broadly-based curriculum RE.  In the section in the report titled 'Main responsibility for religious education', th...

As one of her final actions as Minister of Education, Caitriona Ruane has attempted to clarify the situation on opting out of Religious Education in schools in Northern Ireland. In response to a written question from Green Party MLA Brian Wilson, Ms Ruane stated: 'My Department has informed schools of their requirements and responsibilities to publish information in their schools prospectuses, including the teaching of Religious Education and parents’ right to withdraw their children. Additionally, new guidance provided recently for school governors in the on-line guide ‘Every School a Good School – The Governors’ Role’ includes a specific focus on the provision of religious education and highlights specifically parents’ right to withdraw their children along with governors’ responsibilities in relation to the promotion of equality, good relations and diversity. In line with this guidance, I expect schools to ensure that parents are notified of the facility to opt out of religious ...

  As part of Catholic Schools Week 2011 Bishop Donal McKeown spoke recently of the future of Catholic Education in Northern Ireland. In his address at Holy Cross College in Strabane he reflected on this year's theme: 'Catholic Schools - Rooted in Jesus Christ'. At the heart of his message was a call for a new relationship between school, parish and family in the education of young people: 'How we were schools in past is not the model for being a Catholic school in the new environment.' When the default position for Catholic children is now generally assumed to be non-involvement in a parish church, schools and parishes must do things differently, recognising 'what schools can do, and to accept what schools alone cannot do.' In a society where the greatest threat, he believes, is 'religious indifference', he reaffirmed the centrality of faith to all of life and all of education. Such formation in the faith could not be reduced to a qualification ...

Congratulations are due to Norman Richardson and Tony Gallagher for the provision of an excellent new publication, Education for Diversity and Mutual Understanding: the experience of Northern Ireland . Bringing a wealth of experience, locally and internationally, in the fields of inter-cultural education, peace education and education for mutual understanding the editors, along with other contributors, provide a much needed overview and analysis of developments in these fields in Northern Ireland. While the editors acknowledge in their Introduction that the story of mutual understanding and diversity work in education in Northern Ireland has not been without its difficulties, they are keen to draw out the valuable legacy of this work and the need to learn from both the positive and negative aspects of it. In this way the book points to the future as well as reflecting on the past and reminds educators and policy makers about the need for continued attention to these important iss...

The RE community is mourning the passing of Terence Copley. He was an important and influential scholar who as teacher, author and teacher-educator contributed much to the RE community in England and beyond and whose work inspired many local RE teachers during their studies in Initial Teacher Education. In relation to Northern Ireland Terence will be remembered for his challenging comments on the aims of the first Core Syllabus for Religious Education, when he questioned the nature of the 3 Attainment Targets (Revelation of God, Christian Church, Christian Morality). More recently his vision of a broader, more open form of RE that acknowledges wide diversity has given food for thought in our local context (see Nelson 2007, p. 13 ): 'What British religious education needs to do… is not to continue teaching a sort of disembodied world-religions course as it is currently doing, but to engage with the complex cultural realities of religion in Britain, including popular spiritualiti...

The School of Education and School of Law at Queen's University Belfast have published the findings of research into the experience of children of minority belief who opt-out from religious education in schools in Northern Ireland. The core aim of the research was 'to examine the opt-out clause through the perspective of young people (13-18 years) of minority belief and to assess its suitablility as a mechanism to protect religious liberty in a diverse society.' The findings show that many young people, parents, teachers and principals have little awareness of the legal situation in relation to opting-out from RE. Although, the report also notes that while the opt-out clause offered some protection for the rights of those who exercised it, it did not in itself guarantee respect for the beliefs of young people. Those who do opt-out are treated in a wide variety of ways, from being expected to stay in religious education classes to being removed to an unsupervised room. The r...

At the annual conferences of both the Presbyterian and Church of Ireland churches the respective Boards of Education expressed their concern over the current support for RE and RE teachers from the Education and Library Boards. This has been caused, they believe, by the uncertainty over the establishment of the Education and Skills Authority (ESA). As a result, they say, there is 'a deficit in the support of RE teachers and teaching.' For some time now, Education and Library Boards have chosen not to fill their vacant posts for RE Board Officers. This has resulted in a significant depletion of personnel and, consequently, the scaling back of support activity for RE in the boards. This comes at a time when the churches are also concerned about the impact the establishment of the ESA may have upon the status and ethos of Controlled schools. The Presbyterian Church notes that proposals currently under discussion have the potential to radically alter their ownership rights in edu...