The state of Affairs in NSW
In the early 1900s the state of NSW and the established churches made a deal to facilitate public education. Primary education was usually in Church hands before. Part of this deal was that accredited religious groups have the right to one hour each week of so-called Special Religious Education (SRE) in public schools. It is the responsibility of the various religious groups to provide teachers and determine the content. In addition, schools may provide General Religious Education (GRE) which entails comparative religion studies. GRE is supervised by the Department of Education, SRE is not.The current NSW regulation on SRE states that parents can withdraw their kids from SRE at any time without stating any reason. The regulation also states that schools have to supervise children who do not attend SRE, but prohibits explicitly to teach anything, in particular not ethics, values, or civics. In practice, this means that they have to spend an hour doing not much more than reading or coloring-in.
The Ethics Pilot
Parents have been unhappy about the fact that their children had to wait every week for one hour, doing virtually nothing, until SRE class for their schoolmates is over. Some parents preferred to send their children to SRE anyway, if only to not have them feel ostracised. Some put them into different SRE classes every year, such that could get a taste of the diversity of religion. Nevertheless, many parents have asked for an alternative to SRE classes. Also, the community at large didn't understand how a policy can still be in effect in the 21st century that explicitly discriminates against children and parents who choose not to sign up for religious education.The St James Ethics Centre developed an ethics-based complement to SRE, together with Prof Phil Cam, an internationally acclaimed scholar on philosophy for children. The NSW government approved a pilot project in 2009, which started in 10 primary schools in April 2010.
Resources
Opposition to the trial
- Ten reasons the ethics trial is not a good idea
- Ethics course should not compete with scripture
- The trouble with ethics classes
- You can't teach ethics without referring to Christianity
Newspaper articles on the trial
- NSW schools to begin ethics class pilot
- Bishop enters battle against secular ethics classes
- Scripture classes lose half of students to ethics, say Anglicans
- Keneally allows Anglican Church to vet content of ethics lessons
Podcasts on the trial
- Ethics in the classroom - Prof Philip Cam and Prof Neil Ormerod
- Teaching children to be philosophers - Philosophy at Stanmore Public School
