Church Criticises Proposal to End Religious Instruction in UK [Catholic] Schools

The Catholic Herald (UK) ^ | 6/23/15 | Madeleine Teahan

[marshmallow]

The Catholic Education Service has said that religious instruction must remain part of Catholic education

The Catholic Education Service (CES) has said that religious instruction must remain part of Catholic education following a landmark report calling for its removal in schools.

The criticism from the CES, an arm of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, came in a report by Charles Clarke, the former education secretary, and Prof Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University.

The report, entitled A New Settlement: Religion and Belief in Schools, stated that religious instruction should be the “responsibility of religious communities and families”.

It said that while religious education should be provided, religious instruction was a “separate” thing, better suited to families, Sunday schools and madrasses.

The report said: “It should take place outside the school day, and should only take place on the premises of schools if those schools also properly provide the pupils involved with religious education on the basis of the legally required RE syllabus.”

[marshmallow]

Note: Catholic schools in the UK are heavily subsidized by the government.

[moovova]

This should go over well in the madrassas.

[Texas Eagle]

Catholic schools in the UK are heavily subsidized by the government.

They should be heavily subsidized by The Catholic Church. The Vatican probably has more wealth than the UK government.

[NorthMountain]

Yes, indeed. The government should get its dirty nose out of the business of education. Education is far too important to let the government muck it up.

OTOH, the government has guns, and the Church does not. So when the government insists on sticking its dirty nose into educational matters, the Church has little say in the matter ...

[Petrosius]

[Catholic schools] should be heavily subsidized by The Catholic Church.

And Catholics should be exempted from heavily subsidizing secular schools.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"The Vatican probably has more wealth than the UK government."

According to this article published by the the American Enterprise Institute, the Vatican’s fungible assets are worth about a billion dollars, a mere drop in the bucket compared to, say, Harvard University’s $27 billion endowment.

[Texas Eagle]

Amen. Let people pay for their own kids’ education.

[Mrs. Don-o]

If they're paying taxes, they're already paying for their own kids' education.

So let the State, which has a near-monopoly on educational institutions and forces everybody in by compulsory-attendance laws, either

• provide the kind of educational choices the parents actually want, or
• get the @#$#@ out of the education business.