any thoughts ?

[Tribesman]

It sounds like an unmitigated disaster for the kids and Eire.

Eire is an unmittigated disaster from the outset of independance

Tell me, has the ROI got to grips with 'multiculturalism'* or is it just being ignored by the powers that be?

usual knee jerk short term fixes with a very large measure of ignoring .
What can you say when Bertie makes a new cabinet position of minister for integration , then puts a racist biggot in charge
But anyway on education , there is a primary school at the bottom of the road , it gives good education results , it gets extra funding and very big grant assistance .
Unlike the schools in Balbriggan it didn't close this septembers registration back in february (which is quite late really) it closed it about two and a half years ago , it doesn't matter what your religeon is if you apply , it has no nationality or colour code , this years new class intake is over 30% of african extraction , they knew to get their kids registered in time if they wanted to go to that school
The only condition it places on admittance is that you don't have your kids taught English at school .

[InsaneApache]

Eire is an unmittigated disaster from the outset of independance

Your not a closet unionist are you?

I'm no educationalist, but it seems that the current GCSE's are about as relevant as the old CSE. There is a website, god knows where, in it they compare GCE's with GCSE's.

Guess what?

They (GCE's) were harder. Not to mention more academic.

Our kids are being manipulated for social engineering. An utter disgrace.

Sorry to pull it off topic.

[Don Corleone]

I think its unfortunate that circumstances wound up the way they did, but as others have highlighted, not enough information is provided by the article to form a strong opinion.

The key question is when did these black parents attempt to register their children and whether there were any white (or, if you want to follow the Papist discrimination route, Catholic) families that registered after the black families that found seats in the class. If that could be shown, its an open and shut case of bigotry.

I noticed that the article studiously avoided publishing numbers of the numbers of black children that were accepted for this school year, and what percentage the 100 children were. It may be a cultural issue... that these parents didn't know any better and simply showed up on the first day of school with their kids, not knowing they were supposed to pre-register. Or, it may be discrimination. Its hard to say based solely on that article and the speculation found in this thread.

[Tribesman]

Your not a closet unionist are you?

nice
The trouble with rebellions is that lots of the decent folks end up dead so you end up with the muppets who are left over , even in the last election, 80 years after the conflict we still had civil war politics raising its ugly head .
Its not as bad as it used to be ,women are allowed to teach now even after they get married . Careers options are no longer a simple boat or plane question .
But its still the backward unplanned banana republic of Ireland .

[Tribesman]

Here you go Don , another discussion on it


http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0903/mor...284683,242,209
If you search that site or the 2FM one off it there are lots of stories about it , the UN reports warning of possible problems with the policies is on there somewhere too . (though the latest ones on education will probably be about another schools topic , central regulation of individual schools extra curricular programs and community based groups using school facilities , something about contracts , liabilty and payments)

[Don Corleone]

Right. According to your radio article (and I only listened to the first 5 minutes, sorry, I've only got so long) it appears to be a matter of 1) not enough seats in the schools and then 2) because 98% of the schools are administered by the Catholic church, Catholic kids are getting preferential treatment, legally.

Well, since its Catholic kids that are getting the goodies, I see no problems here.

Just kidding. Well, actually no, but not quite like that. Correct me if I'm wrong Tribesman, but the Catholic Church actually wrote the Constitution for the ROI, right? And there's no mention of it being a secular republic ala the USA or France, correct? Frankly, as much as it might irk some folks, if the country is legally a 'Catholic country', it has every right to discriminate in favor of Catholics. This is similar to countries like Iran and Egypt that discriminate in favor of muslims, India which discriminates in favor of Hindus, or Utah.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'd have more of an axe to grind with the racial discrimination angle than the religious discrimination one. And nobody's actually saying muslim and protestant kids can't get an education, they're just saying they won't be first in line. Hey, if you don't like it, don't move to Ireland.

[Tribesman]

Correct me if I'm wrong Tribesman, but the Catholic Church actually wrote the Constitution for the ROI, right? And there's no mention of it being a secular republic ala the USA or France, correct?

Since you asked .
You are wrong Don , completely on all points mentioned there .
The holy catholic and apostolic church has a special position due to it being the religeon of the majority , but the state cannot endorse any one religeon , neither can it discriminate against any religeon(apart from on public safety grounds or something like that ).
One thing that is in the constitution though , the State guarantees free education , we don't get it though .

[Don Corleone]

Since you asked .
You are wrong Don , completely on all points mentioned there .
The holy catholic and apostolic church has a special position due to it being the religeon of the majority , but the state cannot endorse any one religeon , neither can it discriminate against any religeon(apart from on public safety grounds or something like that ).
One thing that is in the constitution though , the State guarantees free education , we don't get it though .

My mistake. I would have sworn that the Catholic Church wrote your Constitution, which was why divorce & remarriage was constitutionally prohibited until 10 years ago and why the Republic paid the settlements on the sexual abuse cases over there. Oh well, live and learn.

If you are a secular republic, by Constitution, than you're out of luck. You shouldn't be giving state funds to the Catholic church to run your schools, any schools the church sets up should be self-funded. Some would argue they shouldn't be allowed period, that all children should be forced to go to state schools (though I wouldn't). As long as the Church is taking State funds, they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on a religious basis.

[econ21]

...if the country is legally a 'Catholic country', it has every right to discriminate in favor of Catholics.

Such a hypothetical country might have a legal right, but morally, I think would still be wrong. For me, no discrimination on grounds of race, sex, creed etc is right up there with no torturing innocent kittens as a no-brainer. It seems a surprisingly relativist approach for you, Don, to imply that constitutions trump morals.

India which discriminates in favor of Hindus,

No officially, it doesn't. With 16% muslims, it was founded as a secular state and has had Muslim Presidents etc. According to Wikipedia, a recent report to the government found evidence of discrimination against Muslims in state employment etc. But the ruling and secular Congress Party is the one pushing for action on this. Unsurprisingly the opposition Hindu fundamentalist BJP is not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India

As long as the Church is taking State funds, they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on a religious basis.

I think this is the bottom line. When effectively contracting out its services, the state should still insist on such fundamental principles as non-discrimination being upheld. Sadly, my own government (UK) apparently does not agree.

[gaelic cowboy]

The real question is are we allowed to raise our children as we see fit the Irish goverment has enshrined this in law called the equal status act which allows a school to protect its ethos this could be Jewish Hindu Muslim probaly even atheist if some group of people wished for one and applied and recieved funding. Since parents are the ultimate gaurdian of any child the state should keep well out of it and only intevene in the case of abuse or neglect. The solutionis a comprimise state funding for your religons school. Naturally schools have in the past accomadated people of other religons in there schools but I believe that schools should be allowed to preferentially choose co religionists if others see it as discrimation thats there right as it is mine to raise my child Jedi if I so wish. People suffered greatly to obtain these rights and sweeping them away because we either do not share these values or are even hostile to them will cause just as many problems. If I remember the US had lots of debate on a no prayer policy in school a few years ago. I cant pretend I know anything about it but I guess these schools were more state run than religous in nature which meant of course that it was correct to ban prayer however this will only drive people out of state schools and into the murky water of completely religously controlled schools. The state would then have the horrible job of clamping down on peoples chosen education in a bid to stamp out say a kind of Hardline Madrassa type school. By funding religous schools we preempt extremist type schools by allowing people their choice education. No principal could ignore a ruling from his paymaster if he was preaching hatred in school which is exactly what happened a while ago in a muslim school here the department was concerned at some of the content by certain teachers and took steps to warn and remedy the situation. Probably the easiest way out of this is to encourage schools to set aside say 5 to ten percent admisions for immigrants and other religons this would ease it in the short term till more permanent things could be done like building a bigger school.

[Don Corleone]

Such a hypothetical country might have a legal right, but morally, I think would still be wrong. For me, no discrimination on grounds of race, sex, creed etc is right up there with no torturing innocent kittens as a no-brainer. It seems a surprisingly relativist approach for you, Don, to imply that constitutions trump morals.

Oh dear. I apparently left myself open to misinterpretation. I suppose I should have clearly stated that there is a difference between what a being is entitled to do by virtue of their sovereign rights and what a moral course of action in a given situation would be.

In this particular case, I was linking the right or the ability to pursue a course of action as being legally valid to the Constitution that defines said sovereign state. I did not mean to imply that I thought it was a good thing, just that it was a legally permissable thing.

Honestly, I agree with you that discrimination is one of those areas that Christian and secular principles coincide. Jesus didn't rant on ad nauseum, adding up his collected teachings makes for a rather short read. Each of His teaching parables was chosen as a pearl of wisdom and the one about the good Samaritan, groundbreaking for its day, makes it quite clear how He thinks we should treat 'the other'.

From a purely self-interested point of view, I think the Church has got this bass-ackwards. They should give preferential treatment to non-Catholics. Why? Their ultimate goal is to spread the gospel, especially to those who haven't heard it, right? How are they going to spread it to these 100 kids they kept out of class? Who's most likely to have not heard the gospel, the Catholic kids or the 100 children of African refugees (most likely muslim)?