The NSW Labor government has demonstrated its support for volunteer religious teaching in public schools and acted on the need to protect students victimised over their religion.
A helpline to report religious intolerance is now available for NSW public schools. 1300 679 332.
“It’s an additional channel for people to be able to reach out and seek support no matter what that issue might be related to religious intoloerance” Paul Wood executive director of educational standards at the NSW Department of Education told a Special Religious Education (SRE)_symposium at Parliament House in Sydney.
SRE allows volunteers to teach religion for one lesson a week in public and high schools in NSW. A similar system called RI operates in Queensland. Some 11,500 volunteers teach SRE each week, one of the largest continuing volunteer workforces in the country.
The helpline has already received calls, Wood told the multi-faith gathering which included speakers from Christian, Bahai, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic and Hindu organisations. the helpline is the first stage in a process to improve the way schools deal with religion, and as a first step will gather data, leadeing to developing better systems.
“We would hope that it provides faith communities with a bit of, I suppose peace of mind that there is a place that they can go to that they don’t walk away from a problem thinking there’s just nowhere for me to get my help.”
Wood was claer that the school is the first place to take a complaint or issue. “As an education system, we will always say the first place to solve your problem is, and that the first place that people should always try to seek support is the school, but there are people for whom that doesn’t seem to have worked for them or there lacks confidence in that being a solution or they’re just not confident in those circumstances calling… But we would encourage people to seek their support. But sometimes schools are not aware of what these issues are and welcome the opportunity. Sometimes they don’t know how to respond.”
Wood pointed out that each school has an anti-racism person, and the plan is to equip them to also deal with religious intolerance issues.
Professor Zehavit Gross of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, described the research that uncovered the need for the helpline. She and her collaborator Professor Emerita Suzanne Rutland from the University of sydney had been working on research into local jewish day schools. SRE came as a surprise to her. “Speaker 8 (58:48):
So actually we almost completed our study and I told Susan, we cannot complete our study without understanding what’s going on in the Jewish SRE in the government schools. So let’s go in and see it. But now I must admit that I didn’t believe in SRE. I didn’t believe that you can achieve anything in 30 minutes a week, which are practically 20 minutes. So I was very sceptical, but I said, okay, let’s go and let’s see what’s going on there. Now I must tell that I was shocked and I was amazed to see how successful it is.
“I saw that the students are coming very happy to the classes I saw that the educational messages are practically transmitted. So I thought to myself, what’s going on here? What is the secret of success of this SRE framework? So I started interviewing the children and I was asking them why [are they]coming to this SRE classes because it’s voluntarily done.
“So t”The students said openly and explicitly because SRE is a safe place for us. I said, what? And they said yes. They said it so openly and they said that they are bullied on a daily basis in their classes and also in the playground because of the fact that they are Jewish and because of their Jewish identity.
“Well, I said to Suzanne, I’m a researcher and must see what’s going on in other faith groups. So I asked her if we can have the permission to get into other SRE classes of the other faith traditions. And very, very quickly I found out that also the Muslim children, the Hindu children, the Christian children are practically bullied at schools.
“A Muslim girl told me that she’s bullied on a daily basis where people tease her because of her hijab, asking her, ‘what is that towel on your head?’ And they also Muslim males, they were also teased.They were told ‘you are Muslim, you are a terrorist.’
“Hindu children told me that they are abused also because of the dndi and because of the fact that they’re using also other religious say symbols and also Christian children. They told me that people are mocking them. Teasing them and saying, what are you going to the church? Do you really believe in God? In Jesus?”
Deputy Premier and Education Minister Prue Carr told a larger gathering to celebrate SRE that the Minns Labor government is committed to SRE. “I want to be very clear that our government is strongly committed to SRE in our public schools. It has been an integral part of our public school system for many, many years. It represents a partnership between schools and local communities.
“For all of our students, SRE is an opportunity to connect with faith and culture. It reflects our diverse beliefs and the many very different places from which we all come from to now call Australia home.
“Our strong, our multicultural society here in New South Wales is not something that happened by accident. It takes all of us playing a role to respect one another and respect each other’s faith and culture and of course to be open to learning about those who may be different to us. SRE is really therefore a critical way our public schools can support this. SRE can give students a chance to learn about faith values and ethics and to learn how to transform these values into things that they can live each and every day.”
Speaking for the opposition parties, Matt Cross assistant Shadow Minister for Education welcomed the establishmnet of the hotline.
“Earlier this year, my local rabbi asked me to come to the synagogue to listen to the concerns of Jewish students attending public schools. They told me that they did not feel safe in schools that included swastika, graffiti, death threats, isolation and bullying because of their faith. It was absolutely heartbreaking and is completely against our Australian values. The Deputy Premier and I agree that there is no tolerance for religious discrimination. There is no place to racism, there is no place for antisemitism. As leadership is about solving problems, I’m encouraged that action is taking place and I welcome the announcement of the helpline for students and parents to report religious intolerance.”
SRE is special, Michael Stead, the Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, told the multi-religious crowd because it allows “Our kids to be able to embrace their faith, to be able to be affirmed in that faith, to have that recognised in the context of their local schools. It’s special because of the contribution that it makes to the social fabric of our state.
“New South Wales is the envy of the world. As the most successful multicultural country and the [most successful] state in Australia, in the world, we are incredibly diverse, and we have embraced that diversity almost, in fact, better than anywhere else. I’ll go out on a limb and say, absolutely better than anywhere else.
“And I want to put it to you that SRE is part of the special sauce that makes that happen. It’s the special sauce that holds the burger together so that the lettuce doesn’t fall out onto your hands. It’s because we’ve been doing this fordecades, and in fact, SRE in one form goes back to 1856, I think. Because we’ve been doing it so long, we have shown our kids, we’ve modelled that we can live together as people of faith and embrace that side by side in the state of New South Wales. So SRE has been special for the social cohesion in our space, but most of all, and this is the final part of our thing this evening, it’s special because of the special volunteers who make it happen.”
Image: Deputy Premier Prue Carr addresses SRE celebration. Image Credit: Better Balanced Futures