Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

716.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she has issued any guidance to schools in respect of parents entitlement under the Constitution, to withdraw their children from religious instruction classes in schools; if so, if she will provide a copy of this; if not, if she will now commit to doing so as a matter of urgency, in view of the fact that many schools do not make provision for such arrangements; and if she will make a statement on the matter.[35997/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The department has not issued guidance to schools in relation to arrangements to facilitate requests to not attend religious instruction classes. Good guidance is available to schools in the follow-up paper to the Report of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector which was published in 2014. The paper outlines good practice and options for promoting diversity in all schools. The paper also provides an overview of different types of arrangements that schools have put in place to facilitate parents who do not wish for their children to attend religious instruction classes.

The paper encourages school authorities to consider their policies and practices and to review whether they are taking the steps necessary to welcome all pupils and make them feel included. The Catholic Schools Partnership has also published guidelines for catholic schools in relation to the inclusion of all pupils and that this also contains suggestions on how such schools can manage requests to attend school without attending religious instruction.

The Department’s ‘Schools Reconfiguration for diversity process’ supports the transfer of schools from denominational patrons to multi-denominational patrons in response to the wishes of local school communities. This process has been developed to accelerate the delivery of multi-denominational schools in line with the Programme for Government of having 400 multi-denominational primary schools by 2030.

A significant amount of work has been done by the Department on the scope, logistics and practical arrangements for a survey of primary school communities. It is intended that the online, school-specific survey will ask parents and guardians of children currently in primary school and parents and guardians of children who have not yet started primary school their preferences on important aspects of school provision and choice, including demand for a multi-denominational ethos.