Head of teacher union turns fire on Catholic schools

He also said there may be fewer non-Catholics working in Catholic schools now than before a famous legal case eleven years ago, which ruled that a teacher who was an atheist had been discriminated against.

Read more: From Trotskyist revolutionary to Scotland's most influential teacher ... meet Larry Flanagan

In 2006, David McNab, a teacher in Glasgow, took the city council to a tribunal after claiming he was not considered for promotion as a pastoral care teacher at St Paul's High School.

He had been told he required the approval of the Catholic church to apply and won £2,000 compensation after claiming religious discrimination.

Although McNab won his case, the tribunal reaffirmed the church's right to approve all teachers in denominational schools under the 1980 Education (Scotland) Act.

This means that, while councils appoint teachers to posts, the Catholic church approves individuals on the grounds of their “religious belief and character”, a provision critics believe is discriminatory.

Read more: From Trotskyist revolutionary to Scotland's most influential teacher ... meet Larry Flanagan

Speaking to the Sunday Herald, Flanagan, who became general secretary in 2012, said: “The system we had previously, although it was a bit of a compromise, was more effective.”

Asked what sort of system he would prefer, he said: “What used to exist before was a limited operation of approval around pastoral case posts. By and large we would prefer not to see approval there at all.”

He continued: “If you apply to work in a [Catholic school] then de facto you are accepting that’s the nature of the school. It would be a reasonable expectation that you would not behave counter to that kind of ethos. So, on that basis, there wouldn’t necessarily be the need for any kind of ring-fencing of particular posts.”

On the McNab tribunal, he said: “What we have got at the moment, where approval is required for all the posts, I think is a consequence of that particular ruling. And it’s not helpful.”

Asked if be believed the McNab case made the situation worse, Flanagan replied: “It absolutely made it worse.”

Read more: From Trotskyist revolutionary to Scotland's most influential teacher ... meet Larry Flanagan

He added: “There were probably more non-Catholics working in the Catholic sector before that, than after it. So, it was one of those ones where ‘let sleeping dogs lie’.”

However, he said that the approval system was not something that had “surfaced within the EIS”.

Asked if he believed the system is discriminatory, he said: “I suppose that depends on your perspective.”

Fraser Sutherland, Campaigns Manager at Humanist Society Scotland, said: "We don't believe that discrimination on the basis of religious background is appropriate in recruiting teachers for Scotland's schooling system. Children and young people deserve to be taught by the best teachers in all Scottish schools no matter what their religion is or is not.

"We don't tolerate discrimination for recruitment of other public servants like doctors or police officers, so why should we tolerate it for teachers? The Humanist Society Scotland believe Scotland's schooling system should be multi-denominational, with schools being inclusive to both children and staff, of all faiths and none, in all that they do."

Read more: From Trotskyist revolutionary to Scotland's most influential teacher ... meet Larry Flanagan

A spokesperson for the Catholic Church said: "The McNab case simply reaffirmed that approval is required for all posts within Catholic schools - it did not, as suggested, add another layer of posts requiring approval. Rather, it highlighted that there had been inconsistencies in the process in different local authorities. Since then each of the eight Catholic Dioceses in Scotland have been working with local authorities to ensure that the law is applied consistently and that all staff within Catholic schools have approval to teach."