Peter Punt`s Loony Lundy Forum has taken upon itself the role of analysing the “under-achievement among Protestants” in education.  The article about this ends with the following statement.

“Ten years later the report of a working group of academics and community activists concluded more than three quarters of “LTE” (lower than expected) performing schools were in the predominantly Protestant controlled sector, mainly clustered in Belfast.”

Note carefully, it states the “Protestant controlled sector.”  It must be pointed out the “controlled sector” or “state education” as it is more commonly known is not Protestant.  There are very few genuine Protestant schools in N.Ireland and those that exist must finance themselves.

The state education system was effectively “De-Protestantised” many decades ago. People who have been taught in the state sector have never been taught Protestantism. They are not even taught a good version of British history.

This defect in education is surely a factor which helps to explain to some extent the sorry plight that the Protestant, Unionist, Loyalist community finds itself in.

True Biblical Protestantism has always encouraged education and has greatly benefited from an educated leadership. All the leading reformers were highly educated, however their education was a Bible based education.

The good news is that the education which is needy for Protestants to enlighten themselves can be found for free in cyberspace.

THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM

“Protestantism is not solely the outcome of human progress; it is no mere principle of perfectibility inherent in humanity, and ranking as one of its native powers, in virtue of which when society becomes corrupt it can purify itself, and when it is arrested in its course by some external force, or stops from exhaustion, it can recruit its energies and set forward anew on its path. It is neither the product of the individual reason, nor the result of the joint thought and energies of the species.

 

 

Protestantism is a principle which has its origin outside human society: it is a Divine graft on the intellectual and moral nature of man, whereby new vitalities and forces are introduced into it, and the human stem yields henceforth a nobler fruit.

 

It is the descent of a heaven-born influence which allies itself with all the instincts and powers of the individual, with all the laws and cravings of society, and which, quickening both the individual and the social being into a new life, and directing their efforts to nobler objects, permits the highest development of which humanity is capable, and the fullest possible accomplishment of all its grand ends. In a word, Protestantism is revived Christianity.”

Ecclesiastes 12:12
And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.