The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) dismissal of the case for discrimination of Aitken and others vs the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) was a victory for ACCESS ministries, but a hollow one for other groups who offer Religious Instruction (RI) in Victoria's government schools.
The VCAT decision does not absolve the RI program in Victoria of other inequities that are unlikely to be prosecuted, nor will it quell the ongoing, and increasingly vitriolic, public debate that surrounds religious education in government schools. The VCAT decision most probably will ensure that the RI program will continue in Victoria for some time, and until gaps in the current curriculum are addressed it would be a mistake to abolish the program too hastily.
I coordinated the Buddhist RI program for five years from its beginning in 2004, and I also researched how parents, teachers and students experienced this program as part of my doctoral studies. The Buddhist program, like those offered by other "minority faiths," began because Buddhist parents perceived that their children in state schools felt marginalised alongside the dominant Christian program.
Children of families from Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Burma, Indonesia, China, Tibet, India, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, and also many children of families of so-called convert Buddhists or those with an interest in Buddhism, attend Buddhist RI classes. For these children RI classes are places for inclusion and affirmed identity in schools where they, especially children from migrant families, often feel isolated as their religion and cultures are not affirmed in the curriculum. None of the schools where I coordinated Buddhist RI offered General Religion Education (GRE), even though GRE has been allowed in Victoria's schools since 2006.
During my time in schools as an RI co-ordinator, I met many other RI facilitators from diverse faith communities including Baha'is, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Greek Orthodox volunteers. None of these groups has a proselytising agenda - but rather, like Buddhists, they seek to contribute to understanding difference, provide a means for giving their children legitimate status, and in so doing contribute to the development of a cohesive civil society. Yet there has been silence from these RI providers and the religious groups they represent in the ongoing and current public "religion in schools" debates.
This silence too often seems to reinforce those simplistic public polemics: that all religions have a conversion agenda, and are devoid of philosophic rigour; that teaching a religion by a practitioner precludes any critical analysis; that contemplative ways of knowing are at best puerile in the face of rationality. Silence, however, does not mean endorsement of RI as it stands; but, unsettlingly, continued involvement with RI appears to be contributing to public discord and tensions within school communities.
Each of the alternative programs is modest and stretched to their limits. They run on volunteer time and local and international donations, unlike the sizeable amount of funding provided by state coffers to ACCESS ministries. Yet openly to question the equity of how RI is delivered in schools makes for delicate interreligious conversations, particularly between immigrant groups, many of whom have suffered religious persecution in their countries of origin. For these communities, RI is a privilege and not a right, and openly to articulate inequities or suggest improvements, can so easily be construed as threatening the existence of RI programs themselves. However, silence and adherence to the status quo does not ensure furthering of a fair, multicultural and inclusive society.
Here the DEECD can, and should, provide leadership. All of the other religions struggle to meet the demands for their classes from school communities. All RI classes teach values and ethics. Public consultations prior to the 2006 Education Act, my interviews with parents, and the ongoing public debate in the community all concur about how important it is for children to learn about the major religions and something of their ethical frameworks.
RI will be present for some time to come and the half-hour per week can be valuable. My research found that children in Buddhist classes who learned to meditate and explore ethical stories reported that they were developing well-being and resilience through their participation. Learnings such as these can be built upon, and can further interreligious respect and harmony, as long as DEECD, ACCESS Ministries and Religions for Peace (the body that oversees the "minority faiths") play leadership roles:
- The DEECD could use designated funds to include generic training for volunteer teachers from all religions to build capacity for diverse RI teachers to meet the demands of an increasingly multicultural and spiritually diverse community.
- The narrow "religious" criterion needs to be expanded to allow provision of other non-religious ethical programs, as has recently been permitted in NSW. Buddhism, for one, is comfortable sitting alongside humanist and philosophical discourses, rather than being confined solely to religion. Such divides need to be bridged.
- A review of all RI curricula needs to be pursued both by participating organisations and educational professionals. Here ACCESS and Religions for Peace must lead the way. This was requested by attendees at the first and only meeting of RI representatives with the DEECD in March 2011 and has yet to be pursued. These curricula would benefit from open critiques from persons from other religions to ensure that, inadvertent and prejudicial or potentially confusing messages about other religions are not perpetuated in RI classes. For example, as a Buddhist the ACCESS curriculum is disturbing. Their module for children aged 4-6 is entitled "God made everything." Teaching this belief is only appropriate for classrooms wholly comprised of children from Christian families and for other religions who believe in God. Schools - and early school years in particular - are powerful places of integration. The primary school children I interviewed in my study confided that they would use God-talk to fit in with their peers. This type of critique by other religions can serve to adjust curricula so that respectful understanding of differences between young people can be facilitated.
- To further public confidence in RI, the individual programs would benefit from an (independent) professional education review, to assess the age appropriateness of language, concepts and activities offered at each level. It is concerning how the statement "God made everything" can be construed as a form of proselytising. Children at this level of cognitive development do not have the capacity to determine that this is a belief, and a belief not shared by many children from families with whom they will interact.
While these might initially be difficult conversations for faith communities, the education of all Victorian children will surely benefit from a review of the entire RI program. As Australia moves into the Asian Century, there is tremendous potential for government schools to be sites for furthering the understanding of diverse religions and beliefs of Asian communities.
By opening up the RI space, this work has the potential to support the developing Australian curriculum and to include Indigenous ways of knowing, the Abrahamic faiths and non-religious worldviews. This can be achieved through educational leadership and the spirit of goodwill and inclusion for which Victoria is well-known.
Sue Smith is a lecturer in the School of Education at Charles Darwin University.