It won’t happen here Jack.
I often breathe a heavy sigh of relief, after reading about the trials and tribulations surrounding the Intelligent Design debate (debarcle?) in the United States. I think to myself, at least this doesn’t/ won’t happen in Australia.
Imagine my surprise then, at finding out that the cancer of creationist science is alive and well in Australian Schools.
Stephen Crittenden,of the ABC’s Radio National Religion Report interviews the Green MP, John Kaye on the show entitled The Exclusive Brethren and Federal funding.
It is revealled in this interview, almost as an aside, that
In New South Wales alone, there are a large number of schools – teaching about 15,000 students – which teach Intelligent Design as science.
– John Kaye MP
That’s 15000 children (that we know of ) that will never contribute(highly unlikely) to Austrailian Scientific advances. And the scary thought is that as these schools grow in areas where state schools have been deemed to be unviable and can be the closest and most convenient education facility. I say, tongue in cheek, “Won’t someone think of the children?”
How does this happen in a country where we are currently moving toward a National Curriculum?
Now to answer this question , we have to backtrack to the abolition of the Labour Party’s New Schools Policy, by the previous Howard Government. This policy placed restrictions on the growth of new non government schools (for a more detailed read, go here), by ensuring that they were viable, met minimum conditions and did not compete in areas where there was already adequate education provision.
The removal of this policy allowed the growth of small schools, often with very narrow intrests competing in areas where government schools were closing due to low numbers of enrollments.
Access to federal funding was then made available to any school that was registered in their respective State or Territory. Only Victoria had any minimum enrollment number limits at the time the policy was abolished. Hence we had the situation where private schools would set up in buildings abandonned by the state becasue enrollment numbers were too low.
How under state/territory legislation we got to a position where a school can teach creationism as science rather than religious studies is a shock though.
Three possibilities exist to my mind, but feel free to suggest others in the comments:
- The schools were deliberately deceptive/obscure in the curriculm they provided to the governing body, or it was couched in terms of religious freedom
- The governing body had inadequate resources to assess and review the curiculum
- The governing bodies had been infiltrated by those sympathetic to creationism
The disappointing thing is that despite the push for a National Curriculum the Rudd government, is set to maintain the status quo for at least the next four years, i.e. funding Sectarian schools like those run by the Exclusive Brethren and providing funding for crackpot religious sects to promote the bible as a science text book.
I have no problem, apart from a personal philosophical one, to the teaching of creation in a religion class, but the government will have to decide – did Jesus ride with dinosaurs? As Australians, are we going to be leaders in science or …
Related posts:
- Fundamentalists enraged over being required to teach science Unbeknownst to most South Australians it has been possible, until...
- Exclusive Brethren Schools get $70 Million of Government Funding The Exclusive Brethren are an ultra conservative Christian denomination categorised...
- Creationism in the Curriculum – a storm in a tea cup. I tweeted yesterday that i will be posting about creationism...
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This is worrying Sean. I never thought it would happen here either.
What is/are “Exclusive Brethren”??
@Protium,
You wonder why the media hasn’t really picked up on it?
@Donna,
The Brethren are a christian sect, very powerful in business and politics, although they don’t allow there members to vote yet they will support conservative goverments financially. They are under investigation from the Federal Police I believe.
Nasty lot that split up families if one parent leaves they aren’t able to see there children.
Children are educated in closed schools, very restricted access to the internet.
I’ve not heard anything about that Sean, but sadly it does not come as an awful surprise. But I am very sorry for those children who will not have the opportunity to consider an alternative to the indoctrination they will experience.
I’ve not heard anything about that Sean, but sadly it does not come as an awful surprise. But I am very sorry for those children who will not have the opportunity to consider an alternative to the indoctrination they will experience.
I’ve not heard anything about that Sean, but sadly it does not come as an awful surprise. But I am very sorry for those children who will not have the opportunity to consider an alternative to the indoctrination they will experience.
I’ve not heard anything about that Sean, but sadly it does not come as an awful surprise. But I am very sorry for those children who will not have the opportunity to consider an alternative to the indoctrination they will experience.
I’ve not heard anything about that Sean, but sadly it does not come as an awful surprise. But I am very sorry for those children who will not have the opportunity to consider an alternative to the indoctrination they will experience.
I’ve not heard anything about that Sean, but sadly it does not come as an awful surprise. But I am very sorry for those children who will not have the opportunity to consider an alternative to the indoctrination they will experience.
@Tex missus,
I am planning to do a bit more digging around on this story, maybe run a series of posts.
I’d like to hear more Sean- this is very important.
I have just started looking into this in the UK.
Hi Sean
As if Saturdays SMH article How private schools owe taxpayer $2b wasn’t bad enough.
Today’s SMH has a followup article describing how private schools, in particular ones run by the Exclusive Brethren, are using a loophole to claim even more money from taxpayers.
thought you might be interested.
Sean, you ask why the media hasn’t picked up on it? Well as you can see they have, but only on the monetary side of things. As Gerard Noonan says in todays opinon piece, more to the point, why hasn’t the Government picked up on this?
It just goes to show the hypocrisy of the former Howard Government, not to mention its cheer squad in the Murdoch Press, regarding English curricula coming (in the words of the former Ediucation Minister) “straight from Chairman Mao.” Critical thinking and critical literacy in the English classroom = bad; faith-based pseudoscience in the science classroom = good.
@ athur & Oz,
thabnks for the heads up gents. I will hoepfully get on to this tonight , that’s if I don’t get on the turps with Protium.