Baptism barrier: a reality at the school gates

‘I have no judgment about what anybody else does on the planet, as long as they’re not discriminating against someone else. You and I, as taxpayers, are funding this thing which is discriminating against little four year olds. It is shocking.”

Norma Sheahan, Irish comedian and actress, speaks with a fervent passion about the so-called "baptism barrier" in admissions in Irish schools and wants it to change. She has three daughters, twins Isabelle and Jessica who are eight years old, and Jodi who is six years old. Sheahan's daughters are all in Educate Together schools. Like many other Irish parents, to ensure she covered all bases to overcome the "Baptism Barrier" in Irish schools, she had her children baptised.

“I baptised my kids because I thought they would need it to get into schools. I didn’t think they would be lucky enough to get into an Educate Together because there are 650 on the waiting list for this September for our school, and they have only 50-something places so the demand is so high. But basically, there are so many people out there of different religions who are having difficulty with schools and there are other people who don’t practise and they are just basically doing the baptismal to skip the queue to get into the local school.

“I posted off [my daughter’s] forms the week they were born. I had to follow up it up with some of the religious schools to back it up that yes, we had done the Christening and luckily we got the Educate Together so we didn’t need to wash the sins off their head.”

Today, almost 95 per cent of our State schools are faith schools, and 90 per cent of these are under the patronage of the Catholic Church. These schools can legally refuse to admit children from different faiths or none.

Sheahan supports the work Equate, the children and family rights organisation that works for greater equality in primary and secondary school education in Ireland, is doing on this issue in pushing for change in admission policy, curriculum and eventually patronage. “The Church owns the schools, but they are funded by the taxpayer so we’re not saying take religion out of the school completely but it has to be compartmentalised, that’s all we are saying.”

The UN Committee on the Rights of Children found that Ireland’s international human rights obligations require the Government to take action to provide opt-outs for children during religion classes, to end the religious discrimination in school admissions and also to provide more multi-denominational schools.

A recent research poll from Equate found 84 per cent say they believed the school system needs to be reformed so that no child is discriminated against because of their religion. Also, 46 per cent would not choose a Christian school if they had a choice locally. And one in five people knows someone who has had their child baptised solely so they could get into a school.

Sheahan does not think the system change is solely up to parents refusing to baptise their children. “If you have three kids, it could be 15 years of driving 20 minutes every morning and night to get them to school, where you could have them in one on the corner that they can cycle up to themselves. And if it means splashing a bit of water over their head just for the lark, then of course you are going to do that to make your commute and your life easier for the next few years. It can’t be left to the parent to be, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to be strong about this.’ One person can’t change it. This is so simple, all this needs is a tiny change.”

Sheahan says she is not religious herself. “I haven’t been to mass in decades. I attend funerals I have to, or weddings but I believe in God, I believe in spirit. The girls in school, they are teaching me loads as well because they celebrate such amazing things in Educate Together, like values of the week would be friendship or inclusiveness or freedom, and they celebrate all these different things and do projects on them. They are so rounded; it is certainly a step up from what we had.

“I just don’t understand why religion is even in schools. It should be compartmentalised into either the weekends – other countries do Sunday school – or like my kids are in an Educate Together school and if a child wants to do it they pay their €4 or something on a Wednesday to do an hour of religion. So the kids are in school all day long, nobody is feeling isolated, they celebrate every single religion but they don’t enforce any religion.”

She commends the work of Minister for Education Richard Bruton, but is urging for reform to happen immediately.

“ You and I cannot be putting tax payers’ money to fund schools which are discriminating to four year olds.”

The School Admissions Bill 2016 was recently published and director of Equate, Michael Barron, called on Bruton and Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Francis Fitzgerald, to work together to bring forward legislation to remove the baptism barrier in State-funded schools.

“The ‘baptism barrier’, which allows the vast majority of Irish national schools to discriminate against children based on their religion, is not addressed in the present School Admissions Bill. Minister for Education Richard Bruton has asked that the Oireachtas Committee will advise on how to proceed on this issue. I want to see the work of the Committee fast-tracked so that they can report back to the Minister with their advice by the end of the year. This would allow Ministers Bruton and Fitzgerald to work together to introduce a new legislation to remove the baptism barrier in time for school admissions in 2017,” says Barron.

Sheahan says she isn’t interested in the past, it’s about the future. “These changes, they are not going to make a big difference to you out there, but they are going to make a massive difference to that four year old who can’t get in, or that eight year old who is sitting in there feeling isolated. So, we have got to think of the kids.”