Catholic Schools Have Little to Do with Diversity in Education

Summary

---

I SEE that Michael McGrath of the Scottish Catholic Education Service is trying to hijack the diversity-in- education movement as a justification for having separate Catholic schools (Letters, November 4). As a proponent of more diversity in state education, to include encouraging comprehensive schools to offer specialisms and to advertise these in their areas, I would make a distinction between educational diversity and one that is based on adherence to a particular religion.

Catholic schools do not offer an educational specialism such as music, dance, sport, modern languages or Gaelic-medium teaching. They claim to offer a different ethos, but this is difficult to define and impossible to observe in terms of educational outcomes. Their curriculum is identical to that of non-denominational schools over at least 95% of the content. They prepare their pupils for the same examinations as other schools and for the same range of career choices. Everything that they offer is within the context of a secular society, dominated by secular mass media, where religious belief is essentially a private matter with a minimal impact on public life.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Catholic Schools Have Little to Do with Diversity in Education

The Catholic sector depends for its continued existence on a religious and tribal identity that is diminishing each year. Public opinion in Scotland is strongly behind this diminution of an identit...

See the full content of this document

---