Separatists at the school gates

To solve this puzzle, what we first require is an honest and fulsome appraisal of the factors that drive separatism, and an acceptance of our share of responsibility on the part of the public sphere to be as inclusive as we can. We need all Australians inside the tent and, when a splinter-group decides to wall themselves off behind a particular belief system, this reflects to some extent a failure of the general community to assist them to feel included and validated within our society. When separatism spreads, we are all the poorer for it.

The solution is to make our public system ever-more inclusive. There should be no need or desire to shut down separatist schools. Instead, we need to de-separatise them, and to bring them inside the tent of a holistic public school system that reaches across the community. This will require adjustments on both sides of the gates, but it is achievable in a spirit of goodwill and a charitable attitude on the part of all groups.

In the rhetoric of the day, the last thing I would call for is an “Education Revolution”. There is no Bastille to storm, and nobody is going to bayonet recidivists at dawn. Rather, I seek an Education Renaissance - an epochal shift in our expectations and beliefs about what public schooling is and can be, so that all of the public can participate and partake of the benefits.

A particular change would be for the public system to adjust some of its assumptions that are alienating large sectors of the community - in particular, assumptions relating to secularity. This is a considerable intellectual and moral challenge, but it is one we must face if we wish to avoid the dire scenario that results from the continued growth of separatist schools.

Lest anybody misinterpret this argument, let me make it clear that I emphatically reject any notion that government should be involved in religious matters, and vice versa. But to the extent that religion plays an important role in the lives of many Australians, there is democratic validity for government to allow space for such in the public sphere, just as governments provide a space for arts festivals, sporting grounds and bushwalking trails.

We already have a well-established template for such adjustments in the New South Wales primary school system, which educates many children from families as diverse as Exclusive Brethren, sharia Muslims, Orthodox Jews and many other social backgrounds. Schools do this quietly, without grabbing headlines and without damaging the foundations of public schooling, as some militant secularists would fear.

Let those who wish to pursue a separatist schools agenda remain free to do so, and to bear the full economic costs of their choice by becoming truly private and independent. But let those who wish to participate in the public system enjoy the fruits of their choice by being fully included, whatever their beliefs or values.

This would also relieve many parents of the stress, anxiety and expense of making a choice of schools. For what benefits have choice produced? A public system starved of resources and suffering a decline in public confidence, and a separatist school system that undermines social cohesion.

When it comes to school “choice”, our best choice is to transform the public system into one that retains the confidence of all Australians, and to which all Australians can feel proud to send their children. A truly inclusive public system will underwrite our social stability for generations to come. The alternative is that we choose to go down the road of school separatism, with all the fragmentation and upheaval that entails.

It does not seem to me a difficult choice.