If ethics classes compete directly with SRE next year as planned, then Scripture enrolments will be slashed by up to 60 percent, the NSW Government’s own trial demonstrates.
Across the ten trial schools, Anglican and Anglican-Protestant scripture classes lost 123 students or 47 percent of those enrolled.
But the size and scale of losses were far worst at the two suburban schools, with 70 students or 60 percent of enrollment pulling out of the Anglican SRE classes at Hurstville and Baulkham Hills North.
SydneyAnglicans.net has received reports that Roman Catholic, Bahai, Buddhist, Jewish and Uniting Church SRE has also been impacted.
Suburbs v Inner-city
Seven of the ten trial schools are in inner-city Sydney, the area overseen by the Bishop of South Sydney, Rob Forsyth. Anglican-Protestant SRE lost 30 percent of its enrollment at these schools.
Bishop Forsyth said he was "not surprised" by the result, saying it proves that the ethics classes will be far more contentious in the suburbs than in the inner-city where large groups of non-religious parents have already opted out of SRE.
"It proves that the P&C and St James Ethics Centre were wrong when they claimed they were merely providing an alternative to SRE for non-religious parents. This course is genuine competition for SRE. We are losing parents who claim to be Christians but are somewhat ambivalent and easily swayed by the directions given by school authorities."
Bishop Forsyth said his most substantive concern is that the Department of Education has been using its authority to encourage parents to ditch Christian SRE in order to recruit more students for the ethics classes.
"I am very concerned that it is the Government that is now affectively providing this competition."
Therese Russell, coordinator of the pilot program for the St James Ethics Centre, sent a letter to schools at the beginning of Term 1, urging the principals to recruit as many children as possible. Some of the principals sent this letter to all parents and some modified the letter.
The letter stated: ‘St James Ethics Centre is running the trial in consultation with the Department of Education and Training (DET)’ and ‘As you are probably aware, your school supported the 2009 joint submission to Verity Firth, Minister for Education, to approve a pilot program to test the concept of offering an ethics-based complement to scripture in NSW primary schools.’
The letter made it clear that all students, in Scripture or not, should be offered ethics and that students could opt out of both if they wanted.
Sydneyanglicans.net has also received complaints that classroom teachers have been complicit in recruiting students for the ethics course, and some have reportedly misinformed students about the content of the course.
The Department of Education has also proactively sought positive media coverage for the course through local and metropolitan press, with local school principals speaking publicly in favour of the course.
Even more troubling, the Education Minister Verity Firth, has given her personal endorsement of the course content.
"The trial is an Australian first, and is an initiative that is very important to me as Minister," she said in a media release sent out to encourage press coverage ahead of the first class last week.
Three of the ten trial schools " Rozelle, Leichhardt and Haberfield - are in her own Balmain electorate.
Rural context
The only rural school in the trial is at Bungendore near Canberra, and the initial impact on Anglican SRE appears worse than in the inner-city, more closely reflecting that at the two suburban Sydney schools.
The Bishop of Canberra-Goulburn, Stuart Robinson, echoed Bishop Forsyth's concerns about the way the trial has been implemented.
"My concern - like most Christian leaders - is that students are being drawn from SRE and the NSW Government, or at least the Department of Education, appears to have an agenda that could jeopardise SRE," he said.
Bishop Robinson reported to Sydneyanglicans.net that he had information that some rural communities in his Diocese are worried about the impact of course that promotes relativistic ethics believing it will have a negative impact on the discipline of their young people.
The trial course appears to have bias towards left-wing or progressive subjects. Topics covered include animal rights and children's rights, but there is no discussion of traditional Judeo-Christian ethical values such as respect for parents (and other authorities) and notions of service towards fellow citizens.
Improving Quality of SRE
Bishop Forsyth says the one benefit of the controversy is that it proves to local church leaders that quality control of local volunteers is of the utmost importance.
"There will be more scrutiny on what is said in every SRE classroom than ever before," he said. "The Anglican Church needs to look again at the quality of the program we are implementing and we need to ensure all the volunteers that teach our program in our name are receiving the highest quality training possible."
Overall, nine of the ten trial schools have either Anglican or Anglican-Protestant Year 5 and 6 classes taught by trained Anglican volunteers.
The exception is Ferncourt Public School at Marrickville South, which has a small Protestant class overseen by Petersham Assemblies of God.
Local perspective
Most affected SRE co-ordinators declined to comment publicly. Overall there was a feeling the controversy has created a great deal of tension on the local level and SRE was now in a very precarious situation.
The Rev James Davidson, minister of the Anglican church that meets at Baulkham Hills North, said the root of the problem was the special relationship that appears to have been fostered between the St James Ethics Centre and the Department of Education.
"St James Ethics Centre have consulted with DET in putting together this course. This seems quite different to the process that the religious groups go through," he said.
Mr Davidson said the picture is not all bleak and that although they initially lost 23 of 37 students from the Year 6 classes, six came back to Scripture after just two weeks.
The ministry staff at Christ Church Inner West (CCIW) which oversees Anglican Scripture at Haberfield Public School were willing to comment but wanted to emphasise that their local school authorities were "very supportive of SRE" and they had "no complaints" about the actions of the Haberfield principal or staff.
Given the positive local context, Tim Pedley, youth minister at CCIW who co-ordinates Anglican SRE at Haberfield, said he had been unconcerned about the ethics classes until he saw the very real impact on SRE last week.
The Rev Andrew Katay, rector of CCIW, says his main objection to the proposal is that the Government is effectively undermining the freedoms of Christian parents by assuming that a "religion-free" approach to ethics should be the normative position favoured for all students.
"The anti-SRE people think it's the Government's job to educate kids. And they reason, since the Government is secular, so should education be. It's an argument with a certain logic, but only if the premise is right. But it's not," he said, explaining that he believes the State only educates children on behalf of parents.
"It's not the government's job to educate kids " it's parents' job. And if the parents are Christians, they will want this formal education to include within it the Christian gospel. The responsibility for education belongs to the sphere of the family, not the State. So where parents are Christians" the Government should not only make provision for that in the timetable but show respect for Christian parents by providing equal support to their choice, along with others."
