Church owned schools exempt from equality Bill

CHURCH owned schools and teacher training colleges are exempt from the anti- discrimination provisions of the Employment Equality Bill.

However, the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, denied the exclusion amounts to a "blanket exemption" which would allow the churches absolute discretion over the religion of teachers. (P)Religious, educational and medical institutions run by religious bodies will be allowed to discriminate where this is "essential for the maintenance of the religious ethos or is reasonable to avoid offending the religious sensitivities of its members or clients", according to the Bill.

Mr Taylor said this was a "closely worded, focused" formulation which was "in no way" an explicit exemption. Teachers who, felt they had been discriminated against would be entitled to make a claim through the apparatus provided for in the Bill.

The religious owners of schools would have to prove that the discrimination was essential to maintain the ethos. It would be hard to see how the religion of say, a mathematics teacher could prove essential in this regard he said.

It is understood a blanket exemption was included in earlier drafts of the Bill, before being dropped.

The Campaign to Separate Church and State said the exemption in the Bill was a violation of the human rights of many citizens, such as non believers, lapsed church members and minority sect members, who would find it impossible to be trained or find jobs in the education system.

Forthcoming equal status legislation, part of which will deal with the right of students to attend the school of their choice, is likely to apply similar exemptions to religious schools. This has been demanded by the minority religions, which fear the ethos of their schools would be affected if they were no longer able to refuse admission to Catholic pupils.

The religious veto on the appointment of teachers is also likely to be dealt with in education legislation to be published by the Minister for Education in the autumn.