Opinion

Newton Emerson: Schools mixing up religion with science is a worrying sign

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Primary school science display on space which states: ''God created the Sun, Moon and stars on Day 4.''
Primary school science display on space which states: ''God created the Sun, Moon and stars on Day 4.'' Primary school science display on space which states: ''God created the Sun, Moon and stars on Day 4.''

An indignant friend from Portadown sent me a picture last weekend from her child’s state primary school. It was of a science display on space, featuring posters on the solar system, the speed of light, NASA missions - and one which baldly declared: “God created the Sun, Moon and stars on Day 4.”

I put the picture on twitter and the Northern Ireland Humanists Association got in touch to ask if I realised this is a common occurrence.

With three young children of my own, I cannot say I was surprised. Christianity seems to be creeping into more lessons now than when I was at school. Mixing religion up with science is particularly outrageous and history is often another target. Projects on ancient Egypt or Rome, for example, can mean the Old and New Testaments respectively.

Other religiously-themed events, such as films, day-trips and visiting shows, are presented as ‘special treats’ no child will want to miss.

For parents who have exercised the right to opt their children out of assembly and RE, this feels like a loophole through which proselytising continues unabated.

There is one element of surprise in this for somebody my age. I was taught by a 1960s graduate generation - people markedly less conservative than society overall. I assumed this was the natural state of affairs but it has apparently gone into full reverse, perhaps due to the shortage of teaching jobs and the influence of school governors.

Just as I can hardly believe free speech is now menaced by liberals, it seems perverse that secularism must be protected from teachers. Never assume an arc to history - you must always keep bending your own.

But I digress. Northern Ireland turns out, entirely unsurprisingly, to have limited legal protection for non-Christian families. That might seem to be more of an issue in the controlled sector rather than in Catholic maintained schools but legally their situations are very similar.

In England, the Department of Education has taken a firm line against mixing religion with science. The teaching of creationism outside RE was specifically banned in 2012 and schools found in breach face a total loss of funding.

No such ban exists here and the heart sinks to imagine a Stormont debate on its introduction. Incidentally, the Stephen Nolan show expressed an interest in the twitter picture, causing absolute horror to my Portadown friend. Let us tackle one problem of poor education at a time.

Another area where Northern Ireland lags behind is in devising and inspecting the RE curriculum.

Responsibility for both falls entirely and uniquely to the four main Christian churches, not the Department of Education. The churches managed to exclude all mention of other faiths until as recently as 2003, when a modest section on “world religions” was grudgingly conceded, although only at Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14).

Even where legal protection is afforded, observance is patchy.

A 1986 law requires every other subject and amenity of the school to be made available to pupils who opt out of RE. This puts us ahead of the Republic, where such pupils are banned from doing anything else - including homework - in case it gives them an ‘advantage’.

Nevertheless, many opted-out pupils here are not permitted or facilitated to make use of the time.

Secondary schools in Northern Ireland can make RE a compulsory subject at GCSE but must warn of this in their prospectus. Not all do so.

Provision for opting out is inadequate in general. Judicial reviews have established it is unacceptable to park pupils in the back of a classroom or the headmaster’s office, yet this remains the norm. Children can be left feeling singled-out and isolated, putting parents under enormous pressure to simply give up and accede to evangelising - and that is only for RE and assembly, the evangelising they are aware of and have the right to opt out from.

Combining assembly with the mandatory daily act of worship can admittedly be a practical necessity but one that is rarely tackled with any seriousness. Why should pupils miss school announcements?

A 2010 study by Queen’s University Belfast found opting out is especially problematic for newcomer families from non-Christian faiths, who tend to be unaware of their rights and nervous about exercising them. Hopefully, as Northern Ireland becomes more diverse, it will become increasingly untenable for teachers to treat schools like Sunday schools.

In the meantime, native atheists may just keep bending their arc against Noah’s Ark. It is a battle a day, as the DUP councillor on the board of governors might put it.

Also, if God created the Sun on day four, how were there three days before?

newton@irishnews.com