Chaplains for me, Chaplains for you (2 Viewers)

[Generator]

State-school chaplains push

State-school chaplains push
Jason Koutsoukis, Political Correspondent, Canberra
June 11, 2006


FULL-TIME chaplains would be installed in government schools to lift religious standards and provide mentoring for students under a plan backed by the federal Education Minister.

Four prominent Liberal MPs are behind the proposal, seen by the Prime Minister and to be discussed in a meeting of Coalition MPs on Tuesday.

Education Minister Julie Bishop strongly supports the idea, but the Victorian Education Union has described it as "sickening".

Ms Bishop said parents were "looking for choice in the education and values taught to their children".

"This proposal is consistent with the national framework for values education in the Australian schools program currently being implemented across the country and while some states do have chaplaincy programs in place, it is definitely worth considering a national approach," Ms Bishop said.

But Australian Education Union Victorian president Mary Bluett said values were not the sole province of religions.

"This goes to the very heart of our secular education system," Ms Bluett said. "It's also another backhanded swipe at the teaching profession in government schools as if we somehow don't have values."

Others supporters are Victorian Greg Hunt, the parliamentary secretary for environment and heritage, Queenslander Andrew Laming, South Australia's David Fawcett and NSW's Louise Markus.

Mr Hunt slammed state school systems for being "anti-religious" and said it was time the Commonwealth intervened to give government-educated children a chance.

Under the plan, the Commonwealth would match funds raised by any government school that voluntarily raised money for a chaplaincy program.

Mr Hunt said the issue of the separation of church and state would be avoided because it would apply only to those schools that applied for the funding and would be voluntary for those students who wanted to consult a chaplain.

Mr Hunt said a full-time chaplain would cost schools about $70,000 a year to provide.

"So if a school could raise $35,000 then the Commonwealth would match that with another $35,000," he said.

Mr Hunt said there was a gaping hole in the religious education needs of government school students that parents wanted the government to fill. "There is a clear need in our schools for the mentoring and personal development, counselling and crisis management, the opportunity for values-based guidance and religious education that a chaplain could provide."

The four Liberal MPs are proposing a pilot chaplaincy program in their electorates before taking the program national.

Federal Independent Education Union of Australia president Lynne Rolley said she was "sick of hearing this Government imply that government schools are some kind of wasteland without values. It's nonsense."

The Federal Opposition's education spokeswoman, Jenny Macklin, was unavailable for comment

This suggestion will be rejected out of hand come Tuesday afternoon (or so I bloody well hope).

 

[Silver Persian]

I think it would be a better idea to put the emphasis on school counsellors rather than religion. I know that we had a counsellor at our school 3 days weeks, and that nobody ever went to see her. I don't know about other schools, but I think more could be done to promote them.

Are majority of Australians religious anymore? My impression was that most are atheists...

 

[transcendent]

we have a large Atheist population in comparison to other countries but we are still predominantly 'Christian'.

i went to see the counsellor a couple of times, quite useless, then i started using her as an excuse to get out of class

 

[Iron]

I knew there would be church-state issues when Ms 'Bishop' was appointed.
Just mention kiddy-fiddlers and this will be shot to peices

 

[Mc_Meaney]

yay. another waste of bloody tax payers money. what a fuckin suprise.

 

[rific]

It's not all that bad a suggestion.

Government schools would have a higher Christian/religious presence, making them more palatable to those parents moving away from the public system. The chaplains would provide another avenue of support for students to turn to.

Saying that, I don't think they have much hope, and would be surprised and a little disappointed if this is taken much further.

 

[_dhj_]

Religious presence is a disadvantage of private education institutions, not an advantage. It's a trade-off. Higher fees + religious inculcation are the downsides to the better facilities and in general, higher standard of education. Higher religious presence in public schools would add to the incentives for attending private schools and reduce parents' choices.

 

[The_Apprentice]

FULL-TIME chaplains would be installed in government schools to lift religious standards and provide mentoring for students under a plan backed by the federal Education Minister.

Why not have non-religious mentors instead? Public schools have "special religious" education regularly so I don't see a need for even more moves to "lift religious standards".
And what about the good old school counsellor??

To me, this looks like more bullshit conservatist propaganda by Howard/Liberal gov. It's obvious that he wants to mold the Australian family to be conservative and religious (Christian). Banning gay marriage, IR reforms that favour the white middle-aged male and widens the gap between socio-economic classes. Pisses me off.

 

[xeuyrawp]

I think most people are Agnostic, not atheist.

In Australia, I think more would be apathetic Christians, or apathetic atheists. To be theologically agnostic, you needed to have considered the possibilities of the non-/existence of a god. Even Apathetic Agnostics have had religious discourses - the infamous three rational steps. Most people whom I know don't care, or are brought up with 'Christian values'.

Bah, I wish I still had that link to the ABS, which showed the numbers of what people put on the census - itself an indicator of apathy, I mean the biggest single answer group on that census question was 'Catholic' (25%, if I remember), with nearly 38% of people answering as Protestants - all of them being 'Christian - Anglican' (20%), or 'Christian - [other Protestant]'. If that's not apathetic Christianity (Anglican, Methodist, psht, what's the difference?), I don't know what is.

I also find it interesting that the majority of Catholics didn't answer 'Christian - Catholic', but rather 'Catholic'. Statistically, the census doesn't work. From experience, all Catholics say that they are 'Catholic'. Most Protestants say that they are 'Christian', or, if they're regulars/educated, say that they are x denomination. The fact that over half of the 'Christian - [other]' answered only as 'Christian' (need to find that other article) would tell me that there are more Protestants than Catholics in Australia. Therefore the same population group (Protestants) are split over two groups - 'Christian - Anglican', and 'Christian - other'.

Also worth noting is that most people are unaware of what Anglicanism actually is... From memory, not a great percentage actually answered 'Christian - Church of England', which is apparently the greatest historical denomination in Australia. Anglicanism really is an Australian construct, anyway.

Anyway, my point is that the majority of Australians claim they are Christian, with most of them being Protestant. Whether they are apathetic Christians and are just putting down a familiar answer is anyone's guess. We'd have to assume that the people who noted themselves as theists are actually theists.

Edit: found something similar . Bah, it's different to the other one I saw, which talked about the different answers of Christians...

 

[Mc_Meaney]

I think that government schools should seperate religion from education...from my point of view, if I wanted to learn about god and such, I would do RS, and probably go to a Catholic School. I dont see why the government needs to push religion on children...

My two cents.

 

[wheredanton]

It's not all that bad a suggestion.

Government schools would have a higher Christian/religious presence, making them more palatable to those parents moving away from the public system. The chaplains would provide another avenue of support for students to turn to.

Saying that, I don't think they have much hope, and would be surprised and a little disappointed if this is taken much further.

Good point. But I don't think Bishop's motivation for the proposal is to bring people back to the public system.

 

[Serius]

It doesnt sound all that bad and they do have a point. Towards the end of year 8, thursdays religion lesson was removed because too many people were getting notes home from their parents so they could do "non religion" i.e whilst people who couldnt snag a note sit in a classroom learning about god, they go on the oval and play footy. It would have been nice to learn more about religion through my school years and i dont see this chaplain system intruding all that much.

My problem is their reasoning is to do with morals, as if to say that non-religious people do not have them and the morals teachers and parents instill in kids arent good enough.

70k a year is rediculous though. A councilor would do basically the same job[ bar the religious stuff, but all the stuff like confessing] for alot less, and every school allready has a councilor.

 

[gerhard]

my religious teacher (public school) was such a joke. she would teach us how jesus could save us from drug addiction, and how ouiji boards are the devils tools etc, and about how those 'faith healers' were real, etc.

my whole grade ended up pretty much athiest, and i wouldnt be suprised if she was one of the main reasons

 

[Mc_Meaney]

Our school requires you to register as non-scripture to get out of it. In saying that, we only have it up to year ten for like....20 periods a year or somthing rediculous like that.

I think there are more crucial issues to address in the public school system that should be ranked much higher on the agenda. $70kp.a. for each chaplain could be much better spent...like upgrading buildings etc.

Maybe we could even get heaters that work and dont choke us to death with gas fumes?

 

[ihavenothing]

This is disgusting, how dare the government waste money on the dogmatic garbage these people promote. I think the government schools still are over-religious, in both primary and high school I had to attend compulsory Catholic scripture (even though I'm Jewish) But there is another problem, since equality we will have to include chaplains for other religions including Muslim/Jewish/Hindu/Buddhist/Scientologist/Jedi/Kabbalah/Rastafarian/Raelian/Satanist depending on the people's choice, who knows maybe even we will get Agnostic and atheist chaplains.

 

[xeuyrawp]

It's clever. It's probably the best long-term plan that I've ever seen, by any government. How else are we going to get the new-and-upcoming voters to vote Liberal?

 

[poloktim]

It's clever. It's probably the best long-term plan that I've ever seen, by any government. How else are we going to get the new-and-upcoming voters to vote Liberal?

Nice.

I do think religion should stay out of state schools. No scripture class or anything.