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Religious education and the law in Northern Ireland's Controlled Schools

This article examines the legislation under which religious education operates in Northern Ireland's schools. A brief historical sketch identifies the Irish Churches’ interest in the educational debates of the 1920s and 1930s. The legislation that established religious education in the curriculum is traced from those debates to the present statutory core syllabus which requires denominational Christian teaching and the teaching of two other world faiths. This requirement is examined in light of earlier statutes which provided that religious education in controlled schools must be undenominational and based on the Holy Scriptures. Several legislative anomalies are identified and solutions proposed. Human rights and equality concerns raised by the core's largely Christian content and its production by Ireland's Christian Churches are discussed and set in a wider European context.