This will come as no surprise to others who pay more attention to the Education shenanigens in Ireland, but I'll keep this brief. INTO is currently protesting a law that gives Schools some leeway to choose the teachers they employ based on religious beliefs and sexual orientation (particularly Religious Private Schools, you know, those silly little Catholic Grammar schools that nobody cares about? Silly mediaevalist institutions that they are, I mean really.). Citing the law as discriminatory, and denouncing the concept of schools being informed by a religious ethos to be unacceptable and also citing that a fair percentage of Irish Principals supporting a revamping of The Irish Private school system to remove it from its Catholic Roots. (If some reader could be kind enough to find me a an appropriate link of exactly what law they are talking about I would be most grateful, I wish to look it over myself out of curiosity, or part of the law, this sounds like one of those subsection clauses in legislation that deal with particularities)
Why yes, how utterly unacceptable it is to find that a private educational institution has the capacity to discriminate prospective employees before hiring them. Why, letting Religious Private Schools at that being able to hire teachers that reinforce their socio-ethical, moral and religious values, that is even more preposterous! Shocking even! Loathe the day when such a thing should come to pass! Why, its almost as if there is an incredibly ancient history and tradition spanning centuries upon centuries of Religiously informed Academia driving forth intellectual, technological, philosophical progress and refinement across the entire breadth of human civilizations. But that is silly, fantasy talk, this is the 21st century! We are so much more enlightened and cultured then those brutish, ancient rubes on whose shoulders we stand! Truly we are a society to be envied were tolerance and acceptance is paramount at the expense of the virtues that got us to where we are!
Ok, yes, I am bitter about this. Very bitter. I love education, and have strong opinions on it, its role in society and whatnot but they are apparently as irrelevant in the south as they are in the North. This kind of thing really boils my blood, the deconstruction of the education system, in favor of modernist nonsense thinking, on the basis that religious education is 'discriminatory'.
Really? Thats what they're going with? HEAVEN FORBID! Heaven forbid that an extremely successful system be allowed to continue because they have bloody standards! Next you will be telling me that University level education will become a 'right'!
Sorry for the delay in updates, and the shameful expression of invective that greets you in your blog updates with this post, but this thing is just a right thorn in my side, especially after the debacle here int he north with the 11+ and Catrina Ruan the hypocritical Sinn Fein Education minister who tried to deconstruct our segregated system (in fact the current Sinn fein minister is trying to go further with it), as imperfect as it is, by uh, forcing the communities together into schools. Yes, I'm sure that will heal all wounds, by crushing the offending parties together. I cant see anything negative resulting from this. At all.
