I AM writing in response to your front-page report (TESS, April 7) concerning Catholic schools. In 1918, Catholic schools were so envied by the state that they were invited to become part of the state-funded system. Rightly so the Catholic Church demanded a certain protection for the ethos and education in its schools, which included having control over who teaches in them.
Now a teaching union, which is supposed to represent Catholic teachers as well as others, is trying to destroy that agreement. It tries to say that Catholics are preventing teachers in non-denominational schools from getting jobs. It sees to be inferring that Catholic schools are in the majority.
When a Catholic teacher is compulsorily transferred, the first preferred opton would be to another Catholic school, but as these are so few in comparison to the non-denominational sector it is often impossible to be accommodated. Therefore as the education authority is the employer the teacher is offered a post in a non-denominational school.
Jealousy and a determination to destroy religious education in all schools seem to be the driving force behind those who are pushing for the Educational Institute of Scotland to abandon its Catholic members. George Smart, of Renfrewshire education department, is correct when he says that the EIS had created an agenda and is asking questions of those who will give the evidence to fit their bill.
Carole Cannon
Craigmount Brae, Edinburgh
Letters to the Editor
