"Even our definitions are a part of our argument" - Phillip Jackson

What do you consider to be the primary purpose of education? Is it preparation for the workforce, transmission of the current culture, transferring knowledge capacity, or creating a better world? How would you define education?

For me, it is quite distressing that the Federal Government and its advisors happily define education primarily in terms of providing efficient economic units for the job market.

It is this mindset which " out of all of the categories of discussion at the 2020 Summit " led education to be placed in the productivity category.

But for Christians, is education primarily an issue of productivity? I suggest not. We must repudiate the economic rationalist implication that confuses education with training and defines it in terms of workforce language and categories.

Phillip Jackson, as a non-Christian, rightly asserts in the quotation above that even how we define things reflects our worldview. In Jackson's terms, the 2020 Summit has betrayed its economic rationalism imperative by defining education in the light of economic growth " a definition that is misguidedly pagan and demeans children and the nurturing process.

To be sure, being equipped to take up a job is a significant part of school education, but to reduce it to a mere aspect of productivity is to deny the beauty of humanity and the human task. Education is so much more " and fundamentally has a different focus.

Using secular language, so that we will be listened to in the public square, Christians want to assert that school education is much more than a productivity enterprise. It is a social activity in which children learn about themselves, the world, and their places and tasks in the world.
"No neutrality!" is a common catchcry of culturally engaged Christians.

However, the core of our cultural interaction should lie deeper down. Jesus Christ and his kingdom is that foundation. Its authority can be summed up in just seven words: "All the Bible for All of Life!"

These words assert the notion that there is no neutrality because all of life needs to be viewed from a biblically faithful worldview perspective.

Those who do not submit everything to the Lordship of Christ are shaping their view of reality through some other integrating worldview " be it secular humanism, economic rationalism, socialism, Islam or whatever.

The inescapable framing of reality via one belief system is what prompted Lesslie Newbigin to reject the traditional scientific affirmation of "I know, therefore I believe", and replace it with the more honest assertion that, "I believe, therefore I know". 

The former is a form of ideological fundamentalism masquerading as neutrality. The latter is a more truthful reflection of the nature of reality.

Christians should help fellow Australians comprehend the danger of a nation-shaping agenda that confines education to economic productivity.

In fact, Christian educators contend that an important part of education is to equip children to be able to examine and critique culture in worldview terms. This will ensure that public debate is not manipulated by such subtle and powerful forces as economic rationalism.

So there is no neutrality, and as Christian educators we want to view all of life from a biblically faithful worldview perspective. Well then, in which of the 20/20 Summit categories would I argue that education should have been placed?

Perhaps it should have a special category all of its own" 

Dr Richard Edlin is Principal of the National Institute for Christian Education and the Education Director for Christian Education National