The right of denominational schools to have a clear identity and ethos was strongly defended at a conference on denominational education organised by The Iona Institute today.

Proposals to amend rules which allow denominational schools to permeate the day with their own ethos would “undermine the characteristic spirit” of such schools, Fr Michael Drumm, the Chairman of the Catholic Schools Partnership told the conference.

The Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Richard Clarke (pictured) also addressed the conference and told the audience that cuts to the education budget were disproportionately impacting Church of Ireland schools.

Bishop Clarke said that the cuts were targeting smaller schools, and that many Church of Ireland schools would end up being non-viable if the cuts were implemented.

Fr Drumm said that proposals made by the Advisory Group to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism about religious symbols, celebrations and prayer were “not altogether clear” as to intent.

The Forum was established by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn last week and the final report is expected to be published within the next few weeks.

But he said that if what was being proposed was an approach “which suggests that all religions are the same or that a school should not give expression to its identity and should reduce it to the lowest common denominator, then this would clearly undermine the characteristic of the school”.

He said: “The issue of divesting schools would then be largely redundant as the denominational identity of schools would be so diluted as to be irrelevant.”

Last year, the Advisory Group proposed the abolition of Rule 68 of the Rules for National Schools which says that ”a religious ethos should inform and vivify the whole work of the school”

It also recommended that denominational schools should be required to make the display of religious symbols “inclusive of all belief systems in the school” and to ensure that communal prayers and hymns are “respectful of the beliefs and culture of all children in the school.

Fr Drumm also strongly rejected suggestions, made by some contributors to the Forum, that denominational schools were engaged in ‘indoctrination’ or ‘proselytism’.

“To introduce a child to the faith of parents through the schooling system is not proselytism or indoctrination but education,” he said. “Catholic parents have the human right to form their children in accord with their philosophical and religious convictions.”

He said there was a “temptation in contemporary Irish discourse to dismiss religious belief as inherently irrational, divisive and anti-intellectual”.

“Some go as far as to say that schools with a Catholic ethos cannot create a sense of civic virtue,” Fr Drumm said.

Such an assertion “runs completely contrary to the Catholic education tradition,” he added.

Fr Drumm also insisted that denominational schools, if they were to maintain their identity, needed “reasonable legislative provisions concerning enrolment, employment and the curriculum in religious education”.

He defended Section 37 of Employment Equality Act, which permits religious institutions to protect their ethos through their employment policy.

He said: “If there were no Section 37, or its equivalent, then a religious body would have no right to use religious belief and affiliation in any of its employments. Thus a Catholic parish, a Church of Ireland diocese, a synagogue or a mosque could not use religious belief as a criterion for selecting their employees.”

The conference also heard from Mr Henk Vos, director of VGS, an organisation which supports boards and directors of Christian schools in the Netherlands, who said that 60-70 per cent of schools there were non-State, and that 95 per cent of these were Church-run.

This model, he said, put parents in charge.

Such schools were fully funded by the State, but had a wide degree of freedom in terms of establishment, direction and organisation. Mr Vos said these Church-run schools were popular with parents because they delivered high quality education, but also because they had a clear identity.