To clear up some misconceptions, the federal government spends about $6,000 of taxpayer’s money per student in a private school, and about $12,000 of taxpayer’s money per student in a public school.

Most societies have some form of religion. It is ironic that so many academics condemn China for its human rights record regards censorship, freedom of speach and religion, and then attack religious schools in Australia.

The idea that schools should teach science and not religion is also rather twisted. Subjects such as maths and science are in complete decline in Australia, and now judged to be below “critical” in our highly feminist education system (where maths and science are deemed to be “too male”).

In our education system, we don’t have religion, we don’t have science, we just have a vacuum.

Religious education should be offered in every public school. Catholic teaching and the various denominations like Anglican, Unting, Presbyterian etc should also be offered.

Parents have a right to see that their children learn about God, how to pray,the commandments and so forth.

Here in Victoria, an acquaintance of mine who is an atheist has drawn up a curriculum for teaching ethics in the same type of timeslot in schools as religious instruction as an alternative to RI. The Dept of Education has accepted it. I haven't followed up to see which schools are operating this but my friend said that there was no difficulty attracting teachers of the curriculum.

There is one other avenue which I regard as more intrusive into secular education than the ethics situation and that is the "school chaplain" system which John Howard began funding. The claim is that they do not evangelise. Ooooh?! I have watched over the years the inroads that evangelical/pentecostal faiths made into this situation until they got to the stage where John Howard funded it. I am a practising Christian but I think this is a further erosion of the concept of sound free and secular education open and available to all.

The chaplain idea has broadened in recent years across all Christian denominations. For most of us, the only time we came across a chaplain was in hospital. Sure there were army chaplains and industry chaplains. I never saw much to complain of in all these because they were in areas where individuals could find themselves in great need. However, I have noted wide-ranging chaplaincies including the school variety which seem to have the purpose, in my view, of providing God-jobs for the ever-growing numbers of graduates of theological and bible colleges. I even came across a young man in Sydney who purported to be a chaplain to Fred Nile! The young man was not the sharpest knife in the drawer and knew nothing of politics - but he came out of the Bible College at Christian Life Centre, Waterloo which is now known as City Hillsong and this institution was supportive of Nile.

Vanna, you might be the one with the misconception. The article on which you comment was entirely about government schools. I don’t think it made a single claim that would justify your comment about relative funding of government and private schools.

Webby, the reason why the beliefs of specific religions should not be taught is that they all make claims about “truths” whose truth cannot be verified, and which in many cases defy belief. What children should be taught is that there are many people who hold many different religious beliefs, that some of them are so wedded to these beliefs that they are prepared to kill others for not sharing them, and that when they grow up they will be able to commit to one of these religions if they conclude that it would be an intelligent thing to do. That is, children should not be taught about God; they should be taught about religions. Maybe they should also be taught about the Templeton Foundation experiment (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html) that showed that intercessory prayer has no effect on patients who did not know they were being prayed for but made those who did worse.

Glen C,

It is interesting that there have been so many societies that believe in God, or believe in a group of gods. These societies have occurred right back through time, and I think this desire to believe in a God (or group of gods) is part of the human condition.

Instead of “secular education”, read “socialist and feminist indoctrination”, and I think the intent of the article becomes clearer.

"Archbishop Jensen is concerned children may be attracted to the new ethics classes and abandon faith-based acceptance of what is right. Why, because they make more sense? This is a turf war being fought in schools. The feigned innocence of the ethics course proponents is not helpful".

The author of the article is advocating direct confrontation with the religious establishment on the introduction of ethics classes for all public school student. That would be almost doomed to fail for political reasons. Having students twiddle their thumbs during SRE classes is demonstrably unfair to those students and those students are entitled to an alternative. It is reprehensible that religious bodies have had a veto over the introduction of such an alternative for 130 years. I personally question the ethics of those who sought to have that veto or who now fight for the right to continue to exercise it.

The ethics classes if introduced to all schools, as they should be, will improve the intellectual capacities of those students who have elected to avoid scripture and that is what really frightens the religious establishment. The ethics classes are really a lower grade concept of Philosophy for Children which has been shown in a Scottish trial to improve cognitive abilities by 6-7% after one hour of the subject for less that eighteen months. The intellectual improvement was accompanied by substantial reductions is undesirable classroom behaviour (in reality improvement in behaviour in general). With such advantages available any parent concerned for having their child develop to his or her full potential will come to favour the ethics classes as it will be a first step in the right direction.

It is a "slowly, slowly catchee monkey" situation and I suggest the religious establishment may be more concerned for the future of their power base than for the good of the students.