As the dwindling numbers of people who read this blog will know, I haven't been excited by much Irish news lately. But this article, pressing as it does a number of my buttons, made me sit up and take notice:

TEACHERS last night gave a guarded backing to calls for immigrant children who cannot speak English properly to be "segregated" in our classrooms.

This followed a Fine Gael call yesterday for the Government to separate immigrant children with poor language skills from the rest of their classmates.

...

His comments attracted qualified support from the ASTI [secondary teachers' union] last night. However, they preferred to describe the teaching of immigrant children apart as putting them in “immersion classes” rather than “segregation”.

The ASTI spokeswoman said an understanding of English was the key to the integration of immigrant children in schools.

Doubtless there will be knee-jerk responses to this from both sides. Not that anybody listens to me, but I would plead for a few points to be kept in mind. The first being that there are several different considerations involved here, such as:

• How non-English speaking children can learn the language as quickly as possible
• How to prevent them falling behind in their other subjects
• How to ensure English-speaking children aren't brought down as a result of all this

The biggest problem, it seems to me, is that there isn't necessarily one solution that effectively addresses all three of these issues (and that's before we even get into the subject of the social and psychological effects of separating students). I remember the bilingual education debate that was raging in California when I lived there in the 1990s - for all I know, it still is. One side presented studies showing that totally immersing the kids in English was the quickest way to teach them the language. The other side presented studies showing that own-language education in addition to intensive English was the most effective way to promote their all-around academic achievement. Sometimes, these were the same studies. Even proponents of one particular viewpoint were at times forced to admit that it wasn't necessarily a question of finding the "right" solution, but of deciding which aim to prioritise.

Language is a funny beast. It arouses almost inexplicable passions in people, often in inverse proportion to the amount they actually know about it. As was once pointed out to me by a friend of mine with an advanced degree in the subject, so much about language is counter-intuitive - and yet there seems to be hardly anyone out there without a very firm, almost visceral, opinion on the right way to deal with the vexing linguistic issues that arise. It's true for a lot of subjects, of course, that people form views from which they can't be swayed no matter how much contrary evidence is put in front of them. But language seems to me to be exceptional in the extent to which people care so much on the basis of so little understanding of how it actually works.

And it hardly needs to be added that people's views on the subject are often influenced to a great degree by their views on immigration and multiculturalism in general. This makes it difficult, at times, to sort out legitimate concerns about educational standards from lumpen xenophobia just looking for a respectable excuse to latch onto. Of course this works in reverse too: those of us who think of diversity as a positive end in itself are sometimes guilty of not thinking through the practical consequences of policies designed to promote it.

The education of children is an area where society simply cannot afford the hazards of such knee-jerk reactions from either side. It's too important to be decided on the basis of who's shouting the loudest, or which policy fits most neatly within a particular overall ideological framework. The government needs to look very closely at the available evidence - of which there is plenty, just ask the Californians - and make the decision that is demonstrated to be genuinely best for the children, regardless of how (un)popular it is. I know what I hope that decision turns out to be, but it's not for me to advocate. I don't really understand how it works either.

On another matter...

... I don't know what the fuck is going on in the Six County Department of Education, but I would like to disassociate myself from it completely.

Sin é.

Paisley Jnr in sensible comment shock

I've finally got around to reading that interview with Ian Paisley Jnr and, while his comments about gays and lesbians are every bit as vile as reported, I was surprised to find a bit of sense rarely seen in Irish politicians - north or south, republican, nationalist, unionist or other. Asked about segregation in schools, Baby Doc said:

Believe it or not, I went to an integrated school. I believe parents should have the choice, but I believe that if you want to have the choice of a religious, exclusive school then you should pay for that choice - it should not be paid for by the State... I understand that the churches have a huge input into all this, but I think the churches need to stand back and the sooner the better.

I continue my long wait for Sinn Féin to adopt such a sensible, progressive position.

Incidentally, toward the end of the interview Paisley Jnr also refers to the problems that could arise in the event of abortion law liberalisation in the South. Is he bothered by the potential deaths of Irish "babies"? Does he worry that it could encourage similar moves north of the border? No, his specific issue is solely to do with the existence of different laws in different parts of the island. Er, isn't that part of what unionism is all about?

In the latest episode of the long-running saga of Ireland's slow progress toward modernity, it seems that parents are being asked to produce baptismal certificates [free registration required] to get their children enrolled in their local school, where said school is run by the Catholic church (as over 90% in this State still are) and is oversubscribed (no figures, but that number seems to be increasing too, thanks to the widespread and ludicrous policy of building housing estates first with schools to follow later - often years and years later).

Anecdotally, some non-believing parents are even having their children baptised, for the sole reason that doing so is the only way to secure a place in the local school.

Readers from other countries should understand that this is not a case of social climbing parents just trying to get their kids into the best school. In large areas of this State, the local Catholic school is the only school. If there is no place for your child in it, there is nowhere else in the vicinity for the little munchkin to go.

This is ridiculous.

Church officials are defending the policy on the grounds that these are, after all, Catholic schools, and since the Church is running the schools, it has the right to decide who can attend. But that's just not good enough. The extent of the Church's control over education in this State means that Catholic schools are, de facto, State schools. They are even called "national" schools. Their teacher salaries are paid for by general taxation. They are not just some minor private enterprise operating on an optional basis with the right to minimal government interference.

The Minister's response to this crisis (no link, sorry; I heard it on the radio) has essentially been to wash her hands of it. The affected families have little recourse under State law, as both the 1937 Constitution and the relevant legislation were effectively drafted in such a way as to protect the Church's right to decide how the majority of our children will be educated.

But when the reality is that children are being discriminated against because of their (or more accurately their parents') religion - and that some parents are even being forced to "convert" their children in order to secure an education for them in their home communities - it is plain that a serious human rights violation is taking place. If the State won't do anything about it, the parents should go to the ECHR. My general misgivings about the European Union notwithstanding, as long as we're going to be a part of it we may as well take what benefits we can get from it - and anything that helps drag this country kicking and screaming into the 21st century is definitely a benefit worth taking.

Religious ethos exemption: a licence to discriminate

I'll call her Lily. She's a qualified language support teacher - a skill that is desperately needed in Ireland's schools today, given the large numbers of immigrant children from non-Anglophone countries. Lily loves her work and she's good at it. But she can't get a job. Why not? Well, because she lives in a small village in rural Ireland, where some of the locals just aren't used to people like Lily - dark-skinned and with a foreign (albeit native-English) accent.

The last time that Lily applied for a job, she was turned down without even being interviewed. She later discovered that the successful applicant was far less qualified than she. But he was a native. She filed a FOI request to find out why she wasn't considered. The response made reference to the need to protect the school's "religious ethos". In other words, the school looked at her details, deduced from her ethnic background that she is not a Catholic, and decided not to shortlist her.

And this is perfectly legal, because Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 allows denominational schools to discriminate against potential employees who are not of the school's religion.

Once again, Lily is a language support teacher. She wouldn't even be teaching religion. How could her mere presence undermine the school's religious ethos? And without having given her an interview, how could they be certain that she wasn't a Catholic in any case?

It seems quite clear to me that in this case the religious ethos exemption was merely an excuse for the school to discriminate against a person of a foreign/minority ethnic background. With increasing numbers of immigrants in the workforce, the likelihood of this being an isolated incident seems slim.

The need for language support teachers in our schools is pressing - far too pressing to allow the exclusion of qualified people on spurious religious grounds. The law needs to be changed urgently. Not only for the sake of Lily and others like her, but for the children, who need teachers who know what they're doing far more than they need people who happen to fit an idealised cultural stereotype.

I wasn't surprised to read this morning that the CORI report due out tomorrow will show that the gap between rich and poor in this state continues to widen. I see this with my own eyes, walking around the North Inner City.

What I do find absolutely shocking in that report is the statistic that 22.6% of the adult population are functionally illiterate. 22.6%!

Very serious questions have to be asked as to how nearly one out of every four people in this state can go through twelve years of schooling and emerge lacking such a basic skill. There is clearly something very wrong with an education system that allows this to happen. And I have to conclude that primary responsibility for this disaster must rest with those who have primary responsibility for education.

I am not trying to engage in gratuitous Church-bashing. I acknowledge that, in many countries, Catholic schools have superior performance records in comparison with other schools (although that is often due to factors such as self-selection rather than anything inherent to Catholic education itself). But the fact is that the Church has been given a job to do in this state and with an almost one-in-four failure rate, it is clearly not being done. This needs to be recognised.

**

In other news, I see that Republican Sinn Féin invited POW-turned-right wing ethnonationalist Gerry McGeough to speak at their annual hunger strike commemoration. I find this a bit perplexing. I know that many RSF members share McGeough's reactionary views on reproductive freedom (as, sadly, do too many members of my own party), but I am surprised RSF would want to associate themselves with someone now in the news mostly for his ties to fascist sympathiser Justin Barrett and for his slurs on gays and immigrants.

RSF are already viewed by a lot of people, including those who tend to share their analysis of the national question, as fundamentalist political dinosaurs. From the discussions I have had with republicans of the dissident variety, I know that this reputation is impeding RSF's growth and they are not going to shake it by offering a platform to the likes of Gerry McGeough.

I don't agree with the PDs often, but Liz O'Donnell's speech today on the Ferns Report should be shouted from the rooftops. Liz stated that the Church's catastrophic failure to protect the children in its care should - must - mean the end of its special relationship with the State. No more consultation with the Church on issues such as stem cell research, abortion, gay rights, etc. And no more control by the Church over education.

I agree on all of these, but particularly on the last. In an increasingly diverse society the lack of options for non-Catholics, or non-practicising Catholics (such as myself) is simply not acceptable. Schools along the lines of the Educate Together system should be the norm. If people really feel the need to have their child educated under a particular religious ethos, let them set up their own private (and privately funded!) schools. Neither the Catholic Church, nor any other religious institution, should receive public money toward this end.

It's not simply on a philosophical level that I object to state-funded religious education. I also think it's a bad idea as a practical matter. Because you can't discriminate against religions, so if you fund Catholic public schools you have to fund schools of other religions, and this simply encourages segregation. We've seen all too clearly in the northeastern part of this country what that does to intercommunity relations. It's a mistake we should not be repeating.