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Education, religion and values: Getting the mix right

By Noel Preston - posted Thursday, 5 October 2006


Yet it remains highly problematic – especially in State schools, though also in faith-based schools –how religious education programs and the whole school values program should be related. I share the concern of many that the right of entry into Primary schools for Religious Education is a messy, sometimes counter-productive way of teaching such a curriculum. How RE in schools can be reformed is an important issue but beyond the scope of this article.

What is important is that schools are careful how they mandate links between values education and the presence of religious representatives in their schools. This is one reason why  the proposal to provide public funds to subsidise the employment of school chaplains warrants close scrutiny. It emanated earlier this year from some Federal Government back-benchers, with the reported support of the Prime Minister and the Education Minister. Indeed a cynic might be forgiven for sensing in this move an element of pork-barrelling, wedge politics and even another battle ground for ‘the culture wars’.

The idea has been linked explicitly to the need ‘to enhance values in schools’ and even to the suggestion that government has a responsibility to ‘counteract the anti-religious character of certain schools’. This is unfortunate partly because it confuses the role of chaplains in any school who, if they become the champions of the schools values and code of conduct program, might be slotted into the guise of ‘moral policeman’ or erroneously represent the fact that to be ethical one must adopt a certain belief stance.

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Chaplains are mostly valuable and integral to the school communities where they operate and may have an informal, adjunct role in a values program. Nonetheless, credible, effective whole school ethics education, even in a church school, must equip a school community for living in a multicultural, multi-faith, pluralistic liberal democracy. That is not only a sound educational approach but it fosters a context where theocratic tendencies and the temptation to religious bigotry and indoctrination are minimized. Surely this is a preferred social environment for the proclamation of religious good news while also enhancing the prospect for creating a community where all are included in the ethical conversation.

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Article edited by Susan Prior.
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This article was previously published in the Spring 2006 issue of The Eagle.



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About the Author

Dr Noel Preston is Adjunct Professor in the Griffith University Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance. He is the author of Understanding Ethics (20O1, Federation Press, Sydney), and several texts on public sector ethics. His web page can be found here.

Noel Preston’s recent book is Beyond the Boundary: a memoir exploring ethics, politics and spirituality (Zeus Publications).

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