{"id":57578,"date":"2022-09-20T08:25:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T08:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/09\/20\/christian-focused-re-should-be-scrapped-in-schools-study-says\/"},"modified":"2022-09-20T08:25:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T08:25:04","slug":"christian-focused-re-should-be-scrapped-in-schools-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/09\/20\/christian-focused-re-should-be-scrapped-in-schools-study-says\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Christian focused’ RE should be scrapped in schools, study says"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Laws requiring schools to teach “Christian-focused” religious education (RE) and hold a daily act of communal worship should be repealed, says a Ulster Ulster (UU) research paper.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More “controversial issues” should be taught in classrooms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There should also be “common community schools” instead of religiously separated ones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These are some of the proposed changes to NI’s education system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The UU Unesco Education Center paper outlines a \u201cvision\u201d for a unified education system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It also said Northern Ireland could not afford the current “costly, inefficient and unsustainable” system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But while the paper sets out its vision for a single school system, it also outlines a number of obstacles to it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Segregation is still endemic in the current system and has proved a determined resistance to almost every effort to introduce progressive reforms,” \u200b\u200bthe newspaper said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The New Decade New Approach (NDNA) deal previously said Northern Ireland’s education system, with a range of sectors and school types, was “unsustainable”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An independent review of the education system, as promised in NDNA, is underway and expected to report in 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The chairman of the review panel, Dr. Keir Bloomer, however, previously said there was no agreement on what a “single education system” might look like.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The UU paper calls the task of independent verification “frightening – not least in determining what is actually meant by the term unified education system”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A previous article in the UU Unesco Education Center series called Northern Ireland’s education system “divided, fragmented and prohibitively expensive”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For example, the Ministry of Education (DE) funds eight separate bodies dealing with the running of schools and the Education Authority (EA).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The latest paper in the UU Transforming Education series also calls Northern Ireland’s education system “Christian-centred”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“To receive government funding, all schools in NI must operate within a legal system underpinned by a specifically Christian worldview,” it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The influence of a Christian-centered perspective permeates not only the day-to-day (worship) and timetable (the contents of the religious curriculum), but also the day-to-day operations and strategic leadership of schools and, in part, the administration of the entire education system.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The newspaper said the way schools are governed is solidifying “community segregation” and many preschools are also segregated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Indeed, the current system ensures that most of our children are segregated based on their social background from the age of three,” it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    \n
  • Young children identify with political symbols – research<\/li>\n
  • NI education: No religious mix in ‘almost a third of schools’<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    The authors also argue that academic selection leads to the segregation of children based on “socioeconomic status”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    In response to the shortcomings they identified, their paper advocates a unified education system based on a series of changes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    What students learn should be more flexible and tailored to their needs, and schools should not be “largely judged on a narrow yardstick of academic success”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    The paper also states that the way teachers are trained needs to change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    It calls for two university colleges to train teachers instead of the current four, and that teachers from different religious backgrounds should be trained together, not separately.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    The authors are also calling for the repeal of laws that require schools to teach religious education (RE) and hold a daily worship service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    \u201cThe church’s involvement in the development of the RE specification needs to be revised so that a truly pluralistic and inclusive educational program can be designed, implemented and quality assured in practice,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    In July, the High Court ruled that the exclusively Christian-based religious education (RE) taught in primary schools in Northern Ireland was unlawful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    However, it is still unclear how this will affect religious education in schools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    The UU report also calls for a range of other changes to the education system, including a new curriculum and a move away from measuring a school’s success by exam results.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “Communities need to hear what other communities are thinking, and individuals need to learn to embrace differences, not avoid them,” the paper said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    The authors also said that a unified education system would be based on “cross-community” schools and post-primary schools for all abilities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    That would mean that academic selection would be abolished at 11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “We need radical change, not tinkering with the edges, and our communities need leaders bold enough to articulate the need for change in their communities and take them on a journey of improvement,” the paper concluded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “This journey will be difficult for some, but as a society we literally cannot afford to continue with the current system.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Laws requiring schools to teach “Christian-focused” religious education (RE) and hold a daily act of communal worship should be repealed, says a Ulster Ulster (UU) research paper. More “controversial issues” should be taught in classrooms. There should also be “common community schools” instead of religiously separated ones. These are some of the proposed changes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-family"],"yoast_head":"\n'Christian focused' RE should be scrapped in schools, study says - Tahrir News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/09\/20\/christian-focused-re-should-be-scrapped-in-schools-study-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Christian focused' RE should be scrapped in schools, study says\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Laws requiring schools to teach “Christian-focused” religious education (RE) and hold a daily act of communal worship should be repealed, says a Ulster Ulster (UU) research paper. 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