Unfortunately *Is Mise* is spouting utter nonsense, as for some perverse reason the tax payer is in reality subsidising these catholic schools which is worse than a sick joke, the fact of which is easily discernible from the public record.

Thus, these schools are costing the tax payer heaps, not the other way around, at the expense and at the detriment of public schools. Thereafter, it usually costs far more to send a kid to one these schools than it does to send them to a public school.

Further, you can go to any job advertisement right now for a job with one of these perverted places and you will find that catholics are always given preference, that one must have a recommendation from a parish priest as part of the application process and that one must be prepared to wholly support and promote the catholic ethos otherwise no job.

One wonders what that means above and beyond protect the paedophiles, cover up for the paedophiles and when things get too hot move them somewhere else? And upon scrutiny, lie, deny and say it is a matter of the confessional. And when sued, use every dirty legal trick in the book to avoid paying for those whose lives have been shattered and destroyed by bent catholics. And, all things said and done, lay the blame on homosexuals.

Additionally, the only reason that any self respecting Muslim or a Hindu would send their child to a catholic school was if they were legally forced on the grounds that there was no where else for them to go. Such cases represent a tiny minority.

Rarely have I read such utter falsehood *Is Mise* and the fact that the catholic church in Australia has not been summarily terminated goes to the abject immorality of successive Australian guvments.

DreamOn and david f, Catholic children are a part of the public and their parents pay tax.

However the Board of Studies should vet all curriculum and text used to ensure unity of community is being taught and not isolation or superiority on religious grounds. Such schools that indoctrinate and teach contrary to our freedoms of thought should be closed. Terrorists to our freedoms are being raised in schools or by parents that indoctrinate without unemotional comparative critical thought.

Dear Josephus,

Paying taxes is no reason that the religion of the taxpayer should be subsidised by other taxpayers. it's that simple.

Your suggestion that the state vet what is taught violates S. 116 of the Australian Constitution. Catholicism, Islam and most other religions claim they have a truth unique to them. Should the state ban that as you recommend when you wrote: "However the Board of Studies should vet all curriculum and text used to ensure unity of community is being taught and not isolation or superiority on religious grounds."

Superiority on religious grounds is basic to both Christianity and Islam.

Better let them have their schools and obligate them to pay for them. Some Christian and Muslim parents will send their children to public schools to mix with other Australians of different backgrounds from theirs.

david f, The State funding of education is to all children and does not discriminate on religious grounds against the children whose parents hold to certain world views. We however must be certain that the religious schools are teaching for a morally cohesive and free society.

David f, if every taxpayer's religion has an equal right to subsidy based perhaps on the relative number of practitioners, including the neo-religions of scientism/atheism, then there is no longer an ethical reason not to subsidise. There may still be reasons, of course: it may be seen as unecessary churn, it may be seen as undesirable cost-shifting, it may be that some taxpayers who don't feel strongly about religion would rather funds were used elsewhere, some practitioners may feel that accepting a subsidy implies an obligation in return and so on.

On the original topic, while I am entirely happy for those people who choose to follow a doctrinaire approach to religion to educate their children in that doctrine on their own time and at their own expense. Public education might well usefully include an extensive comparative religion, philosophy and psychology component as part of the general liberal arts curriculum though.

We need to place a high priority on teaching children how to think about thinking and religion is undoubtedly an important part of that, but not the whole. Before we can do that though, we have a couple of generations of neglect of the teaching of teachers to fix.

Small steps...

Dream On,

"Unfortunately *Is Mise* is spouting utter nonsense, as for some perverse reason the tax payer is in reality subsidising these catholic schools which is worse than a sick joke, the fact of which is easily discernible from the public record."

Kindly quote the relevant public record, svp.