Report confirms Supreme Court findings on dire North of Ireland religious education

A report from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) has validated the findings of a recent Supreme Court ruling that found the North of Ireland’s religious education fails to be “objective, critical or pluralistic” and amounted to a form of illegal indoctrination.

QUB explain that the study entitled RWE for All’ (Religion and Worldviews Education for All) is an attempt to investigate how religious education in schools could be made more inclusive. They remind readers that the current syllabus is drawn up exclusively by four Christian churches and “mandates compulsory teaching of exclusively Christian content“.

It’s pretty easy to see how, in a context where approximately 70% of the world’s population is non-Christian, this is a wholly inadequate method of teaching the topic of religion. One wonders what this principle of education might look like when applied to other fields of study — medicine where prospective doctors learn about the heart, lungs and a few other bits, then don’t bother finding out about anything else in the body, perhaps? English where students are taught verbs, but not adjectives or nouns?

North of Ireland survey respondents keen on revamped curriculum

Fortunately, many of those surveyed revealed themselves to have a bit more sense than the fanatics who drew up the current curriculum.

QUB explain who they spoke to:

The teachers who participated, however, certainly appear to feel poorly served by the current approach, with the report saying:

They identified feeling vulnerable and unprepared to manage the growing diversity of beliefs in their classrooms, often lacking the necessary subject knowledge, professional development, or policy guidance.

School assemblies are a key site of indoctrination, and teachers, along with parents:

…reported discomfort regarding some visitors who deliver age-inappropriate, judgemental, or fear-inducing messages as part of assemblies.

Who would have thought children barely out of nappies might be upset by fanatical weirdos turning up to pummel them with detailed descriptions of a man being tortured to death in one of the most brutal ways imaginable, while also being told they’ll burn forever in a place of eternal torment if they misbehave? One parent described the reality of this peculiar form of child abuse, saying:

It’s Easter and she comes home extremely upset and told me the crucifixion story in a lot of detail, which alarmed me, because she’s five and they’re
talking about crowns of thorns and dots on the hands is what she told me. So, we got quite annoyed with that, because we wanted her to learn, but none of this was expressed in what we thought about the ethos of the school.

The authors conclude that:

…the current Core Syllabus for Religious Education is not suitable for Northern Ireland’s increasingly plural environments and creates challenging
ethical circumstances for children, parents, and teachers.

They recommended various ways to rethink the current paradigm, such as:

Being person-centred, giving all pupils equal status as learners

This would entail “taking seriously the beliefs and values of every child in the classroom”, ensuring those with no faith and those practicing a religion other than Christianity would receive proper acknowledgement. This is also considered a bulwark against indoctrination. Other proposals include:

Informed by those from diverse religious and philosophical convictions

and