Dug,
The Teachers union on this matter does not represent all teachers only it's vocal anti-religious members. Keep up the attitude against the Chaplins and witness the flocking into private and religious schools. Because these teachers in the State schools are promoting a religious view, and their salaries are paid for by the State. They are taking a religious stand funded by the Government i.e no religion in State Schools.

Philo can you calm down and change your previous comment so it actually makes some sense please ?

Teachers Unions by their very name represent the teachers who have joined together
, They are the united voice of the majority of school teachers.

All members have the right to vote on any decision made by the union. The vast majority want chaplains OUT of state schools>

When an independent and secret survey of teachers and principals was proposed to gauge support or otherwise of school chaplains it was opposed by the 2 major providers of chaplains Scripture Union and Access Ministries, one could only assume the reason they opposed such a survey was they knew the outcome would be the majority of teachers and principals while they may employ chaplains would far prefer trained profesionals who can take over this role.

http://www.aeuvic.asn.au/972896.html

Try to step aside from your religious bigotry and see what is actually the truth of the issue. Our kids need profesionals to care for them in schools, the chaplains program while it may be well intentioned is taking money that could be better spent.

Do you support government waste or efficient use of scarce resources

I've voiced my opinion on this matter before, but will offer it again. Note, of course, that it is only an opinion.

I have a problem with chaplains in state schools for a number of reasons. I'd never considered it until I was a teacher in a state high school with a chaplain. Note also that I'm not against religion in schools, which is part of why I now work in a Catholic school, where parents have CHOSEN to have their kids educated within a religious institution.

A few things I have considered over the years:

1) The school chaplains I worked with in my time with Education Queensland were, without exception, from 'small' denominations. Assuming that the bulk of Australian Christians are Catholic, Anglican or Uniting, as census data suggests, the views promoted by the chaplains tend to differ from the Christianity endorsed by these kids' parents.

2) One of the reasons that Catholic, Anglican and Uniting chaplains are rarely engaged may be that these three organisations tend to establish their own schools. It is far more likely that a Catholic chaplain would be engaged by a Catholic school, for obvious reasons. And the parents who send their kids to these schools are at least aware of the sort of chaplaincy that will be on offer. It seems to me that, if they wish to 'infiltrate' the education system, these other denominations should invest the capital in schools of their own. If they are not supported by parents, then that gives some indication of the extent to which parents truly support their chaplaincy in secular schools.

(To be continued ...)

(... continued)

3) Even among those who claim to be Christian, the vast majority of Australians appear to do so only as a matter of course. They do not take their children to church, they do not necessarily believe in God or in the teachings of the Christian churches. Why, then, must their children be subjected to such teachings at school? It always made me shudder when our chaplains led prayers on school assemblies, for two reasons: their style of prayer jarred with me, a Catholic; and I felt bad for those children who were expected to bow their heads and engage in an insincere act, praying to a god they don't believe in.

4) The service offered by chaplains could be summed up as a mere 'presence'. Kids who don't like their teachers can book appointments to go to the chaplains because they're 'stressed' or 'anxious', rather than engaging in any learning. The chaplains mean well but, with no formal training as educators or counsellors, can offer little more than a listening ear and a few passages from the Gospels to make kids feel better. In the same school, we had a police officer, a nurse, several guidance counsellors and a trained youth worker who could offer the same services without a religious slant.

Without exception, the chaplains were great people. They cared about kids, wanted to enrich their lives and aimed to make a real difference. Religion had made a difference in their lives, so they saw religion as the ‘catalyst of change’ that would make a difference in the kids’ lives. Unfortunately, they seemed to be blind to the fact that other ‘catalysts’ were available to the kids and, in many situations, were probably more appropriate. A pregnant 14 year-old doesn’t need a chaplain: she needs a nurse, a police officer, a youth worker and – above all else – a parent or two. Strangely enough, even the religious schools I have attended or worked at realise that.

Dug,
I’d agree that Philo’s last comment was a little hard to follow. But I agree with what he says about teacher unions. Union heads are political animals with political aspirations. Their pronouncements don’t always reflect the wishes of the profession as a whole, or even that of their member constituency. (I say this as someone who was at one time a member of a teacher union, and would happily be so again in similar circumstances.)

Most teacher members (imo) share a broad spectrum of philosophical ideas and have more pressing concerns than entertaining a spiritual witch hunt.

Otokonoko,

I appreciate your very fair-minded comments.
As Ron Williams has said in the media, it comes down to the proper separation of church and secular state.
Religious instruction programmes should also be abandoned in State schools, though I for one acknowledge that there is a void to fill in terms of the State implicitly promoting only the mundane and vacuous elements of materialistic human life. We are idealistic beings and ethics and philosophy more broadly (including political philosophy) should be part of our education system, and in a similar spirit as the Ancient Greek idea of Paideia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paideia
I would beg to differ with comments above to the effect that: <Parents who "educate their children, contrary to the view of [the society those children will live in]" are doing their children a disservice>
On the contrary, Society is not solid state or "necessarily" good and right, and children should be educated to think critically and constructively about all elements of their culture. How anyone can assert that our society is beyond criticism, or cannot or should not be drastically improved and altered, is beyond me.
Terrorism and intolerance are in large part the product of just such conservative and rigid mindsets, incapable of reflexivity and self-criticism.