by Alan Jacques
AN atheist group with members from Limerick, Clare and Tipperary has called on Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan to end religious influence on the primary and secondary school system.
The Mid-West Humanists (MWH) believe the present education system discriminates against children who have no religion and breaches their human rights by denying them access to an education free from the teaching of religious beliefs as facts.
The group say they are not asking for more schools of multi-denominational patron, such as the Educate Together schools, but for all state-supported schools to be in State ownership, and to be secular schools.
The changes that the Mid-West Humanists seek to Ireland’s education system will, they say, make it easier for government to deal with the increasing variety of religions and make it easier to provide education.
The group, who meet on a monthly basis to discuss issues relating to an ethical philosophy of life, maintain that the secular system it proposes would also “liberate” teachers who are “unhappily forced to teach values in which they no longer believe”.
Peter O’Hara from the MWH said that a secular education system where everyone has the right to their beliefs and where the State remains neutral on these beliefs is the only way to protect equally the rights of religious and nonreligious people.
