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The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the Christian-focused model of religious education (RE) in Northern Ireland’s schools is unlawful, concluding that the current system fails to meet the requirement that teaching be “objective, critical and pluralistic.”
The judgment follows a legal challenge brought by an unnamed father and his daughter, who attended a state-controlled primary school in Belfast. The girl had received Christian religious education and participated in Christian worship, but her non-religious parents objected to her being taught about Christian faith, despite having an option to withdraw their child at any time from RE.
According to the ruling, RE in Northern Ireland “amounts to pursuing the aim of indoctrination.” The court stressed that the decision does not abolish RE but instead forces schools to “widen” the range of faiths introduced to students. In effect, this means that, along with teaching about Christianity, primary school students should also hear about Judaism and Islam as part of their religious education. The court also ordered RE teachers and guest speakers from other religious backgrounds to be invited as well.
Stormont’s education committee chair, Nick Mathison, urged Education Minister Paul Givan to issue guidance. He argued that the issue is not about “pitting faith against secularism,” but about “ensuring schools are inclusive spaces that recognise and respect all value systems—both religious and non-religious.” The ruling, he said, will “not mean the removal of religious education from schools, but does mean there will have to be some change to ensure a more objective, critical, and pluralistic approach which respects the rights of families of all faiths and none.”
Darragh Mackin of Phoenix Law, who represented the family involved in the case, called the ruling “probably the single most important legal decision for education certainly in the last century.” He described it as a significant moment for human rights protections in Northern Ireland. The ruling, he said, highlights an “important distinction” between “teaching about a certain religion as opposed to teaching them to be a certain religion.”
Ulster Unionist Party education spokesperson Jon Burrows called for the Department of Education to clarify the ruling’s full implications. While agreeing that “no child should ever be stigmatised” if their parents opt out of RE, he added that “many people will not agree with the suggestion that current provision amounts to indoctrination.” He said the department must now determine how to comply with the law while “continuing a system that has worked well for generations.”
Traditional Unionist Voice MP Jim Allister sharply criticized the decision, saying he was “deeply disturbed” by the ruling. In his view, “the inflammatory term ‘indoctrination’ is an affront not only to teachers and parents but to the Christian foundations upon which our education system has long rested.” He “reject[s] entirely the suggestion that Christian teaching in our schools amounts to indoctrination,” arguing that the term has been “weaponised to belittle the sincere Christian ethos that shaped our society, our laws and our moral compass.” He called the ruling “another insidious elevation of rights of non-Christian parents over those of Christian parents” and framed it as a challenge to the education minister to “protect Christian values in our schools.”
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