Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms McLaughlin): I welcome Miss Karen Jardine and Dr Peter Hamill from the Transferor Representatives' Council (TRC). I advise you both that the session is being reported by Hansard, and a transcript and video of the meeting will be available on the Committee web page. I invite you both to address the Committee.

Miss Karen Jardine (Transferor Representatives' Council): If it is OK, I will start. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Committee this afternoon. Peter and I are here on behalf of the Transferor Representatives' Council. Peter is a last-minute stand-in, so I will take the lead in this bit, and both of us will engage with your questions.

I will give you a little bit of background on the TRC. It involves the Methodist Church, the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. It is involved primarily with the controlled school sector, and it seeks to uphold the interests of those Churches in that sector and to promote and maintain the non-denominational Christian ethos in those schools.

I place on record our thanks to the Bill sponsor for his engagement with us, as the TRC, during the policy development stage of the legislation and for the subsequent offers to meet him as well. The TRC has been following the development of the legislation in the different debates in the Assembly, and we note the debate on a private Members' motion in May last year, in which all the main political parties expressed support for the removal of the Fair Employment and Treatment Order 1998 (FETO) exemption. The Committee has a short briefing note from the TRC regarding its position on that.

Words such as "equality" and "discrimination" are part of the everyday lexicon of political life in Northern Ireland. On the face of it, that seems very straightforward, but, like everything, there is probably nuance and interpretation in that as well. The TRC is supportive of further equality of opportunity in teacher recruitment and is generally opposed to discrimination on the grounds of religious belief unless the nature of the job requires it to be done by a person holding or not holding a particular religious belief.

Sometimes, there can be a perception out there — not that the Committee or the Bill sponsor have ever said such things — that, somehow, transferor governors may be involved in some dubious employment practices, because of the provisions of the FETO exemption. I place on record the fact that all governors, including transferor governors, undergo significant training from the Education Authority on recruitment and selection. There are, rightly, already legislative checks and balances in place to ensure that those processes are fair and open.

There is also a suggestion that what happens in this part of the world is a bit of an anomaly and that no one else has a sense of school ethos as being part of how recruitment takes place. However, those who want to work in Catholic schools in Scotland have to indicate that they are willing to support the aims, missions, values and ethos of the school to which they are applying. One of the questions for the Committee to consider is this: if the FETO exemption is removed, in what way can a board of governors and school leadership ensure that those who are employed by the school will work to uphold and maintain that school's ethos? Every school, whether it is controlled, maintained, integrated, Irish-medium or whatever, has its ethos, but how can that be maintained if the exemption is removed?

Those are our short opening remarks. I am happy to take questions.

The Chairperson (Ms McLaughlin): Thank you very much for that, Karen. I will lead on from where you left off. There is an argument that religious ethos should not be a feature of a modern state education system. How do you justify sustaining such an ethos in the current social environment?

Miss Jardine: I will start, and then I will bring Peter in on that. People sometimes forget that we have the schools that we have today because Churches started them. It may feel like that was hundreds of years ago and that time has moved on, but it is important to restate that point. You will hear from representatives of other sectors next week, I think, so they can speak for themselves, but controlled schools that have a non-denominational Christian ethos are open to people of all faiths and none. They uphold values such as compassion, honesty, integrity and kindness. Those kinds of things cannot be argued with. Those values are held, again, by people who share faith or who have none. I do not think that the non-denominational Christian ethos on which many of our controlled schools are founded is a hindrance in our modern-day education.

Peter, maybe you want to come in to speak to that.

Dr Peter Hamill (Transferor Representatives' Council): It is difficult to add anything. You summed it up correctly, Karen. It is about having that opportunity. There are different types of schools in many different countries around the world. I do not believe that there is a country where there is only one type of state school and no religious schools. Our society is mixed; therefore, our schools can be mixed.

The Chairperson (Ms McLaughlin): OK. In your submission, you expressed concern about the exemption being removed from controlled schools but perhaps not from Catholic maintained schools. That is not our understanding of the Bill at all, from what the Bill sponsor has said. Will you elaborate on your concerns, Karen?

Miss Jardine: Again, I will start and then Peter can come in. We are not saying that it would be removed from one and not the other. Apologies if that is how it came across. The point was picked up well by your witnesses from the Equality Commission in the previous session. At one stage, the RE certificate was a challenge, and the FETO exemption provided a backstop, if you want to use that term, or a safety net. The RE certificate is becoming more available, however, directly from Stranmillis and from other teacher training organisations, so the question is this: how can any school from any sector not have the capacity to ensure that those who work in the school are there to support its ethos? Every school has an ethos, whether or not it is a non-denominational Christian one. I presume that those who want to promote that ethos want to ensure that those who work in that school environment also support that ethos.

Peter, do you want to come in?

Dr Hamill: You are correct in what you have said. The ethos is the key thing. Our concern is that schools will still be able to ask, in an interview, a question such as, "How will you hope to fulfil and protect the ethos of the school?", whatever that ethos may be. That is what is most important.

The Chairperson (Ms McLaughlin): OK. Thank you. In your submission, you also refer to a narrowing or redefining of the exemption if necessary. Will you give us a wee bit more detail on what that would look like?

Miss Jardine: Peter, do you want to take that?

Dr Hamill: It goes back to the protection of the ethos. We would like to look at the opportunity to adjust the Bill in such a way as to protect that ethos. The Bill as drafted takes every reference to schools out of the FETO exemption. The FETO exemption still remains, however, because the Churches have that protection when they employ people, so it is a question of taking aspects of the Bill out. That is what we were looking at.

Karen, do you want to add to that?

Miss Jardine: There is a slight difference between post-primary and primary schools. Your previous evidence session also covered that. In some of the evidence on the issue, teacher community background is more mixed at post-primary level than at primary level. If it is the mind of the Assembly to pass the legislation in some sort of phased or staged approach, that might help with understanding its equality impact initially and how it works before rolling it out across the board.

The Chairperson (Ms McLaughlin): OK. No other members have indicated that they wish to ask questions, so thank you very much for giving us your evidence this afternoon and taking the time to brief the Committee. Thank you, Karen and Peter.

Miss Jardine: Thank you.

Dr Hamill: Thank you.