Comment on the NSW proposed Ethics (Critical Thinking) Course
Posted: 05-Nov-2010
This article was submitted to Eternity, which can be acquired at http://www.eternity.biz/.
Comment on the NSW proposed Ethics (Critical Thinking) Course
We are faced with a number of different but related issues in connection with the review of the NSW state primary school ethics course.
First there are the issues raised in church submissions to the review by Dr Sue Knight which have not been satisfactorily answered because of the very limited terms of reference.
There is the review itself and what it recommends, which not surprisingly is what the minister wants. The process has been highly unsatisfactory and poor process, but this is the report we’ve got.
There is the political fall-out of what the government is expected to do with it, having effectively given the go-ahead while also saying that they want responses to the review by the public before making a decision….
All this is against the background of next March’s state election when many expect the government will not be returned to power. The Education minister herself is very vulnerable in her own seat, especially from the Greens.
So the policy position of the state opposition is important in knowing what the eventual wash-up might be. A course in critical thinking about ethical dilemmas running at the same time as SRE may well start next year before the election, but the Coalition parties will have to do their own critique and develop a clear policy. It is still not clear what that policy will be.
At a rally in support of SRE a few months a former senator made the observation that the state government were most likely determined to roll out the course before probably losing the March election. They would be hoping that the new government won’t be in a position to change anything until the course had been operating for a couple of terms, making it part of the school landscape and difficult to remove.
My hope is that a new government might be persuaded to confer with all parties in the way that the present government singularly failed to do last year when the pilot was announced. Serious matters of principle are at stake.
The ongoing advantage of the ethics course proposal is the way it is concentrating the minds and wills of SRE providers and church members across NSW. It is the overdue wake-up call to the central importance of SRE in the ministry of our churches of engaging with local families who have an interest in their children knowing what the Christian faith is about and what the Bible teaches.
There are already some secondary principals trying to set up some sort of ethics alternative to SRE because of the messages given my the government on this issue, even though there is no proposal for secondary schools to have ethics classes at the same time as SRE. This is a measure of how badly the situation has been handled over the last twelve months. But the onus is on SRE providers to communicate well what they are offering SRE classes, and to develop the best working relations they can with their local schools.
Peter Robinson, CEO GenR8 Schools Ministries
