Wayne

People need to understand what is really driving the school divestment programme. The Department and the NCCA see religious ethos - but more specifically, Catholic ethos - as an obstacle to the full realisation of their new educational project. The quickest way to remove that obstacle is to persuade the public that divestment is about choice and building a more inclusive, pluralistic education system where children of all faiths and none can access schooling without having any religion imposed on them (sounds like a reasonable proposition). This is not, however, the true motivation for change. The reality is, that the removal of religious ethos is necessary to clear the way so that the new, state-endorsed belief system can move to the centre of school life, unhindered. The push for patronage transfer is happening in parallel with sweeping curricular reforms at every level of education. These reforms are largely centred on teaching our children a particular way of understanding the world - a comprehensive belief system in its own right. When we think about various contentious content that has recently appeared in our children’s schools (e.g., gender identity content, family A and family B, age-inappropriate sex content etc.) it's easy to mistake these as entirely distinct and unrelated issues. But they are not. The real aim in each of these seemingly separate lessons is not really for our children to learn about the surface issues - its to help them, through repetitive exposure, adopt a specific moral and social ontology. Each of the controversial topics in the curriculum are taught through this specific lens. The goal then, is for this lens to become the only lens through which kids understand their personal, social, and political world. Catholic ethos in schools currently provides one of the last remaining bulwarks against the advancement of this ideology into every aspect of school life. The NCCA and Dept understand that success in getting children to fully embody a true believer in their ideology rests on removing exposure to any competing belief system. Once you remove religious patronage, the national curriculum can function as an almost totalising tool for indoctrination into the belief system and the reproduction their ideology. With religious patronage removed, no serious counterweight to the State imposed ideology exists in schools. I might be more open to divestment if what was replacing religious ethos were genuinely neutral. So-called "multidenominational" models are not neutral. Once religious ethos is gone, the vacuum this will create will not remain empty. The State's ideology is waiting to fill the void. This is, in my view, an existential threat to the social order. This is not hyperbole. The belief system they are imposing on our children is like a cancer - it eats away at much healthier ways of being, knowing, and relating. It makes people less functional in the real world. This form of education is not education at all, it is indoctrination into a totalising belief system. I understand that the divestment programme has the support of the Catholic Bishops and I believe this comes from a place of genuine goodwill and a sincere desire to foster real pluralism. They are trying, in good faith, to make space for every child. But this goodwill is being taken advantage of to advance an agenda that only becomes apparent when you examine recent curricular reforms and policy changes in detail, and so i believe their support, however well intentioned, is ultimately misplaced. The alternative to current arrangements is not pluralistic education. Although the vast majority of primary schools are currently denominational, they are nonetheless inclusive. I can assure you that, in schools that transfer patronage, your family will not be made to feel welcome or your beliefs included if they differ from the State's on issues such as gender, "diversity", or how we should understand social reality.