The landscape of the Irish education system has just undergone a major shake-up, with news that State-run primary schools are getting rid of the First Communion class.
The move, introduced by the Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI), will ensure that any time devoted to preparation for the sacraments will take place outside of school hours.
The affected schools are following in the footsteps of the Educate Together structure, which offers after-school preparation classes for interested students and their families.
According to Independent.ie, the move was announced at this week’s annual ETBI conference, on the basis that “if everyone was to be treated equally, belief instruction has to be outside the school time”.
Minister Richard Bruton said that while the Department of Education had not been formally notified of the decision, he welcomed the move.
The First Holy Communion has been in the news a lot in recent times, mainly due to criticism of the ‘trappings’ of the child’s day out.
MummyPages research revealed that much of the focus nowadays is on the cost of the day, with 87 percent of mums admitting to feeling that the celebrations can be a bit excessive.
We can certainly see why, too; over half of children (56 percent) receive monetary gifts to the sum of €500 to €1,500, while almost the same amount of mums (57 percent) reported spending a whopping average of €1,222 to €1,525 on the big day.
One person who has been very vocal about the tradition is Dr John Buckley, Bishop of Cork and Ross.
Earlier this year, he urged parents to ‘be sensible’ when it came to their child’s special day. He called for the focus to be placed back on ‘the encounter between the child and Jesus’, insisting that anything that would ‘come between the child and reception of the Eucharist should be avoided’.
What are your thoughts on the latest move at State-run primary schools? Let us know in the comments!
