Church battles secular ethics classes

JACQUELINE MALEY

April 14, 2010

THE Bishop of North Sydney has urged Anglican priests to collect information from principals of public schools to stop the spread of the secular ethics classes the Sydney Anglicans believe may threaten religious education.

In an email seen by the Herald, Bishop Glenn Davies urged ministers to contact the principals of public schools in their parishes to ascertain the exact numbers of children enrolled in religious education. This was even though most schools were not involved in the trial, which is being piloted at just 10 schools under the guidance of the St James Ethics Centre.

''The St James Ethics Centre claims that there are large numbers of students not enrolled in SRE [special religious education],'' the email from Bishop Davies read. ''We need to gather some accurate information to challenge this claim.''

Bishop Davies added that ''there is an urgency to this request'' and asked for results by the following week.

The Herald has learnt that even rectors whose local schools are not involved in the trial have turned up at P&C meetings to protest about the secular ethics classes.

Groups of religious education teachers including Anglicans have also lobbied the principals of schools where the trial will occur, to make sure the trial did not affect their class numbers.

The NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations and the St James Ethics Centre yesterday renewed their invitation to the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, to meet to discuss the trial.

''There is absolutely no desire or intention to weaken religion or eliminate scripture from schools and to suggest otherwise is misleading,'' the centre's head, Simon Longstaff, said. ''The reality is that, prior to this trial being mounted, in some schools, 50 to 80 per cent of students were electing not to go to scripture.''

The course would let children who did not take scripture class examine ethical issues, but without an overarching theology, he said.

The president of the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations, Di Giblin, said there was ''enormous interest'' in the secular ethics trial among parents, ''with more schools hoping to take part in the pilot than we can accommodate''.

The NSW Teachers Federation said it was ''highly inappropriate'' that religious organisations should seek to interfere in a course designed to provide an alternative to religious education.

Dr Jensen, who privately lobbied the Premier, Kristina Keneally, over the classes, said ethics should not be offered as an alternative to the Bible.

His principal concern is that the ethics classes have been offered to all children at the pilot schools, not just those who have opted out of religious education, which he said was the original intention.

The pilot program co-ordinator for the classes, Teresa Russell, said that in line with advice from the Department of Education, all parents at the relevant schools had been informed that ''all children were welcome'' at the ethics classes.

Dr Jensen told ABC radio that the ethics trial had been ''rushed through'', which is why he had sought to have a meeting with the Premier, who he said was an ''interesting and intelligent person''.

Ms Keneally assured him there would be ''proper discussion'' of the trial at its conclusion.

Dr Jensen said it was not easy to be heard in the debate about the trial, in part because of ''countervailing forces that may be less scrupulous in putting their case''.