There are two issues here. One is about standards and one is about choice.
The issue in relation to standards is really about 'quality' of education but it is easier to talk about standards than quality. The trick being played on the community by our respective education departments is to setup a whole lot of virtually meaningless standards and then conform to those 'standards'. Thus they create the illusion that they are delivering high quality education.
The product of high quality education should be an effective working community in which individuals both contribute meaningfully to the community and draw satisfaction from full participation in the community. This is difficult to measure but there is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence that our community is falling a long way short of this ideal.
We want a high quality education system which supports the reality of cultural and religious diversity that exists within Australia. Teaching of idiotic notions like 'intelligent design' should be eliminated from our education system by the application of a meaningful quality assurance program.
The argument about choice in education ultimately boils down to an ideological debate which can never be resolved as long as people continue to hold different political views. Lets hope no-one ever manages to impose political uniformity upon us.

Nice article, Irfan. I find it very interesting that so many kids are being sent to these obviously academically substandard fringe religious 'schools'. As I've alluded to elsewhere, I wonder how many of them constitute the so-called 'white flight' from public schools.

I think the solution's quite simple: reverse the divisive and obscene government financial support without which these second-rate schools would not be viable. If parents want to have their kids brainwashed in culturally homogeneous religious institutions, I suppose there's no way that the rest of us can stop them if they are prepared to pay for it, but at the very least we shouldn't be asked to fund them to the detriment of the public education system.

CJ,

I reckon you are throwing all independent schools together unfairly.

I know an Independent School that has out performed the state in all academic indicators and these are kids that the state did not want in their wonderful ‘multicultural’ (or so they say) school system.

Or do you think an independent Indigenous school might be a place where kids are "brainwashed" and are "culturally homogeneous".

However I agree, kids should not be sent to what are really ‘churches’, not schools.

But often these schools are much more accepting of difference than are state schools.

And there is big difference between independent and private school that does not get explained in the public rhetoric.

And what would Irfan know about schools anyway?

Rainier, I was talking specifically about religious schools. I can't see any good reason why independent community schools can't be funded directly like any other public school anyway - but I'm not a teacher :)

I'm just saying I think that the efflorescence of all these dodgy religious schools under the Howard regime has come at the expense of the public system. If people want to have their kids indoctrinated in religion, let them pay for it.

Congratulations on taking such a fine line in this article, Mr Yusuf.
I have always been fascinated by the lack of faith so many people of faith exhibit in their faith; not wanting their children to be 'contaminated' by other religions, or by those of no religion at all.
Surely people of genuine faith would have no problem with studies of comparitive religion, so children could also have some choice in their beliefs, rather than having to slavishly follow the beliefs of their parents?
In fact, I do believe there's something in the Bible about that...
Actually, I seem to recall the Amish (or perhaps a similar sect) have a custom of sending their teenagers out to experience the 'other' world, before making their commitment.
Now that's faith.

i agree, lets start with the Catholics and work our way down the list.

Take for instance the an elite Lutheran school in Brisbane that would not accomodate a Jewish student's religious practices.

My point is that those schools that are accomodating the specific religious or cultural needs of their community should not be demonised simply because they do