School Chaplains
I'm back :)
The Howard Government has announced it will spend $90million on a school chaplaincy program, where schools (private or public) can have a taxpayer funded chaplain, provided they are Ok'ed by the Education Minister.
This is absolutely disgraceful. What an abhorrent waste of money! Schools struggle to get basic teaching services, but can have a "spirtual guidance" councellor. As far as I'm concerned, if you want religion as part of schooling, send your kid to a private school. And guess who just saved some more money? Rich private schools who already have two or three chaplains, now get these positioned tax-payer subsidised.
THe very idea that the Government should fund a program forcing Christianity into public schools is an attack on the seperation of Church and state. Oh, but they claim that the Chaplain's do not have to be Christian. Are they really going to appoint a Swami or a Mufti to that position? I think not. I find Christianity to be quite confronting, not least because of its in-your-face attitude to other religions. This young upstart of a religion goes around telling people of other religious beliefs that they are wrong, when their religion is relatively young (compared to Eastern religions). Believe what you like - thats fine - but to push a particular value system in PUBLIC schools is dead wrong. Besides, people who "need" spiritual guidance, will not be voluntarily turning to Chaplains. The only people to use such a service already have their beliefs. Why spend $90million to service a particular group, when school councellors can help anyone and everyone.
Thoughts?
The Howard Government has announced it will spend $90million on a school chaplaincy program, where schools (private or public) can have a taxpayer funded chaplain, provided they are Ok'ed by the Education Minister.
This is absolutely disgraceful. What an abhorrent waste of money! Schools struggle to get basic teaching services, but can have a "spirtual guidance" councellor. As far as I'm concerned, if you want religion as part of schooling, send your kid to a private school. And guess who just saved some more money? Rich private schools who already have two or three chaplains, now get these positioned tax-payer subsidised.
THe very idea that the Government should fund a program forcing Christianity into public schools is an attack on the seperation of Church and state. Oh, but they claim that the Chaplain's do not have to be Christian. Are they really going to appoint a Swami or a Mufti to that position? I think not. I find Christianity to be quite confronting, not least because of its in-your-face attitude to other religions. This young upstart of a religion goes around telling people of other religious beliefs that they are wrong, when their religion is relatively young (compared to Eastern religions). Believe what you like - thats fine - but to push a particular value system in PUBLIC schools is dead wrong. Besides, people who "need" spiritual guidance, will not be voluntarily turning to Chaplains. The only people to use such a service already have their beliefs. Why spend $90million to service a particular group, when school councellors can help anyone and everyone.
Thoughts?
The proposal appears to be based on the concept that a uniform religious guidance counsellor can be provided at the institution.
I know at the school I attended, it would simply be impossible to provide a guidance councillor that would do the job for all beliefs and faiths. In fact, in religious terms, most state schools are broken up into such mixed religions that no one religion is practised by more than 30% of the students. Therefore, any "guidance cousellor" provided would essentially be catering to a minority.
It has been suggested that to recommend such funding available to schools who choose to take it is only catering to rich private and religious schools. As effectively, they are the only schools that force uniformity of religion onto their pupils, I tend to agree.