Faith-based schools are becoming increasingly popular. However, critics argue that some discourage critical thinking, and can damage social cohesion by fostering insularity.

Have Your Say: Do religious schools unite or divide the community?

What are the implications for society if students are increasingly isolated in schools that define themselves by religion? What happens when a Christian school meets an Islamic school for an interfaith exchange?

In 2006, faith-based schools received $1.8 billion in federal funds and a further $679 million from state governments. Nearly half a million students are currently enrolled in these schools.

Tonight, Insight takes a look inside Christian, Jewish and Islamic schools to see what they are teaching, and how they are teaching it. And what happens when God collides with the curriculum?

Insight: Tuesdays at 7:30pm.

Watch the show - in three parts

Correction

It was stated on 'In Good Faith' broadcast Tuesday 27/5/08 that 38 faith based schools declined to appear on the program. Insight contacted at least 38 schools, 15 formally declined to take part.

We apologise for the error.

*****

TRANSCRIPT

In the past decade there's been a big increase in the number of independent schools across the country. The growth has been fuelled by funding arrangements set up under the Howard government. Independent schools sit outside both the public system and the established traditional Catholic system. In 2006 they received around $1.8 billion in federal funds and another $679 million from the States. Independent, faith-based schools are increasingly popular. So what is a faith-based education and what happens if religion collides with the curriculum? Here's Lisa Main.

PACIFIC HILLS STORY:

REPORTER: Lisa Main

Pacific Hills is a Christian school in Sydney's north-west. The school's philosophy is to develop consistency between their faith, their values and life decisions. Today this Year 10 science class is discussing how their faith integrates with the subject of evolution.

BRENDAN CORR, SCIENCE TEACHER: So when it comes to this view of where did everything come from, we've got a whole range of positions. Over at one end we have those who would be atheistic evolutionists. So there is at one end evolutionists that are believing that there is nothing other than the natural world. Richard Dawkins would be up at this end. But there's a whole range of other ways of considering the evidence. For some there would be people who would say the earth is only pretty young, that the Bible gives an absolutely accurate story of how things happened, when things happened and that the earth is 6,000 years old.
There's another group of folks who would be - who would say there is evidence for intelligent design. We actually don't know what that intelligence was, we don't know necessarily when it might happen - we can't be absolutely sure about that - but the evidence seems to suggest somebody was designing. We will have people in this class who will fall into these different categories. We have people going to different churches in our school that will fall into these different categories. You will have friends who will be here.
We know that not all the families and all the students in our school are Christian, we might have some folks who are absolutely convinced that the only true solution is up at the right-hand end of that spectrum. We have just as much respect for their viewpoints in our school as we do for any of the others. What we want to do for you folks, is to allow you to ask the right questions, allow you to think about what is the world showing you, what does God's revelation through the world show you? What does God's revelation through his scripture show you so that you can come to some clear understanding about your view.



JENNY BROCKIE: Welcome, everybody, and very good to have you all here tonight. Ted Boyce, you're the principal of that school that we just saw there. Now, I know you are teaching the standard science curriculum as well as what we've just seen, but as a committed Christian, what do you want children at your schools to believe about how life on earth began?

TED BOYCE, PACIFIC HILLS CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: Our desire is that our students would know their creator and understand the creator's point of view as described for us in the Bible. We also want our students to know what they believe and why they believe it so that they will develop strong characters to make wise, strong and good decisions in all areas of life and to put their belief into practice in service of others in the community.

JENNY BROCKIE: So where does evolution fit into that picture? Evolutionary science?

TED BOYCE: Our students need to know about the theory of evolution because it is the predominant viewpoint in society as far as academics is concerned.

JENNY BROCKIE: But you don't believe it's true, so you presumably don't suggest to them that it's true?

TED BOYCE: Well, we suggest that they need to come to their own conclusions on the matter, as you saw the teacher describing it there.

JENNY BROCKIE: I'd like to talk to some students from other faith-based schools about this issue. Sandra, you're the school captain of the Islamic College of South Australia. What are you taught about the way the world began at your school?

SANDRA ELHELW, ISLAMIC COLLEGE OF SA: Well, we're taught a range of theories. In our science class we're taught the theory of evolution but it's taught as a theory and it's left up to us to decide whether to go with that theory or to go with our religious theory.

JENNY BROCKIE: And which how much weight are these various ideas given?

SANDRA ELHELW: In science class we don't discuss the theory of creationism, so probably in our religious class we'd be taught that God is the creator and all of that and it's up to us to decide.

JENNY BROCKIE: And have you decided?

SANDRA ELHELW: Yeah, I've chosen to go with the Islamic perspective.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK, Sarah Rubenstein, you're from Mount Scopus Jewish School in Melbourne. Are you clear about the way the world began from what you learn at school?

SARAH RUBENSTEIN, MOUNT SCOPUS COLLEGE, MELBOURNE: Yeah. From the beginning of school I've always had a clear understanding of the Jewish perspective. And my viewpoint is pretty much the same. I agree with it.

JENNY BROCKIE: And that viewpoint is?

SARAH RUBENSTEIN: That God created the world in six days and on the seventh day we rest and that he created Adam and Eve and after Adam and Eve animals were created - sorry, before Adam and Eve animals were created, the sky, the ocean, and after it was Adam and Eve.

JENNY BROCKIE: And what about when you get science class about evolution, for example, how do you deal with that?

SARAH RUBENSTEIN: It's actually really interesting to see the science perspective and the natural way, but it does conflict with the Jewish way and I get confused sometimes.

JENNY BROCKIE: Do you?

SARAH RUBENSTEIN: To be honest, yeah.

JENNY BROCKIE: Tell me about getting confused.

SARAH RUBENSTEIN: Well, the belief is really hard, there's no actual proof that God created the earth. So I guess the belief is pretty much the most confusing thing.

JENNY BROCKIE: Lachlan, you go to a parent-controlled Christian school. What do you think about the way the world began from what you've learnt at school?

LACHLAN REEDERS, MOUNT EVELYN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: Well, we don't do evolution in science until Year 11 or 12, but from devotion groups and Bible studies we've been taught that the world was created by God in six days and that he rested on the seventh day.

JENNY BROCKIE: So what's it like for you when in Years 11 and 12 you're introduced to evolution, the theory of evolution for the first time?

LACHLAN REEDERS: It's probably - for some people it could be a bit...in your face, because they've been - it really depends on whether they have Christian or non-Christian parents, because they might only know the way that the Bible tells us, and suddenly confronted with this majority viewpoint they might be a bit shocked.

JENNY BROCKIE: Rob Brooks, you're an evolutionary biologist. If kids at faith-based schools are studying evolution as part of the curriculum, what's wrong with including their religious beliefs about creation as well, what's wrong with emphasising those religious beliefs?

PROFESSOR ROB BROOKS, EVOLUTION AND ECCOLOGY RESEARCH UNSW: Well, emphasising religious beliefs in a science class is fundamentally wrong because it's bad science. Really, all of the evolutionary point - sorry, all of the creationist point of views, from our young earth creationism through to intelligent design, really start with the answer. The answer for them is always - comes back to God and comes back to a creator and a special act of creation that adds meaning to life.
Whereas evolutionary biology is a scientific process and it's about finding out how the world works. And in science we try to find out how the world works without knowing what the answer is beforehand. We wouldn't want students in class choosing their theory of how the atom works or the chemistry of water or all sort of really important things. Medicine, how medicines work, for instance, and it's the same thing with biology.

JENNY BROCKIE: Stephen Law in London, what do you think about this? I know that you've written about faith-based education quite extensively. What do you actually think about this discussion that we're having and about the relative weight that's placed on these things?

STEPHEN LAW, AUTHOR, ‘THE WAR FOR CHILDREN’S MINDS.’ Well, I'd like to make it clear right at the beginning that I'm not an objector to faith schools as such, I don't have a problem with religious schools. I do have a concern about the kind of teaching that goes on in at least some of them. And your first clip of the Year 10 class certainly illustrates the point, I think, that there are reasons to be concerned. Intelligent design is not a theory which is taken seriously in mainstream scientific circles, and young earth creationism - the view that the entire universe is just 6,000 years old - is frankly ridiculous. And for a science teacher to be presenting that theory in a science class as something which merits their respect and indeed merits serious scientific scrutiny and attention is very much a concern.

JENNY BROCKIE: Ted, response?

TED BOYCE: Yes, I would like to respond to that. Our view is that we should advise our students and instruct them on various ideas in the market place of ideas in science. If we were indoctrinating our students I would understand the concerns, but we are introducing an idea that's out there which has been in the press in Australia for the last three years and has had a big showing from lots of people, both pro and con.

JENNY BROCKIE: Does God come up a lot in other subjects at your school? Is God present right through the curriculum?

TED BOYCE: Absolutely. We believe that God needs to be considered by our students in everything, for He is their creator, their sustainer, the one who gave them their intellect and the one that we believe, as a Christian school, that they are to serve.

JENNY BROCKIE: Kathryn, you're from the Northern Beaches Christian School in Sydney. Does God come up for you right across the range of subjects that you're taught all the time?

KATHRYN GETHNAR, NORTHERN BEACHES CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: All the time. It's quite a prominent figure sometimes, especially in history when you talk about what's happened in the past and where - origins of certain countries and definitely religions, any religion really, where it comes from, and yeah, God does pop up quite a bit.

JENNY BROCKIE: And a teacher asked you recently how to include God in maths, was it?

KATHRYN GETHNAR: Yes.

JENNY BROCKIE: How are you going with that?

KATHRYN GETHNAR: Still got no ideas, but you know...

JENNY BROCKIE: Stephen O'Doherty, your association represents over 150 Christian schools around the country. How central is Christianity to all the teaching at those schools, right through the teaching?

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY, CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AUSTRALIA: It's central to who we are, it's central to what we do. We have no claim to be called Christian schools or even to educate at all as Christian schools if we're not teaching about the God who made us and the purpose for which He made us. You can have two views of the world. There's Stephen Law's view in which God doesn't exist. If God doesn't exist then man has to ask himself or herself, then why are we here? What is our purpose?

JENNY BROCKIE: Rabbi James Kennard, you run a Jewish school. You say its Jewish ethos is integral to all its activities as well. How does that manifest itself in the curriculum at your school?

RABBI JAMES KENNARD, MOUNT SCOPUS COLLEGE, MELBOURNE: Probably not in ways that you would necessarily recognise. there's about a quarter of the week is devoted to Jewish studies and the Hebrew language. It manifests itself particularly through the rhythm of the school and the extracurricular activities that we do coming up to the Sabbath and coming up to the festivals. It doesn't necessarily appear in a manifest way through the general studies curriculum.

JENNY BROCKIE: Ikebal Patel, you until recently headed up an organisation that runs five Islamic schools around the country. Does Islam permeate the whole curriculum in those schools?

IKEBAL PATEL, CHAIR, ISLAMIC SCHOOL CANBERRA: Probably not as directly as what I've heard from my Jewish and Christian brothers. We have separate periods for Islamic studies. Of course, Arabic as a language is offered separately as well. But the ethos of the school still is based around Islam and therefore that permeation of religion through the classroom in terms of the dressing up, in terms of prayers at mid-afternoon, for instance, in the morning you start with a verse from the Koran - things like that are there, but of course, then we also have things like national anthem. So there's a good mix of religion as well as the various other values that we inculcate in the children.

JENNY BROCKIE: We'll get back to the finer points of teaching a little bit later on. Barry McGaw, I'd like to bring you in here, though. You're the new Federal Government's top adviser on curriculum. You said earlier this year that the rapid growth of faith-based schools was threatening social cohesion, how?

BARRY McGAW, CHAIR, NATIONAL CURRICULUM BOARD: Well, it was a more general point I was making, actually. When I was at the OECD, the OECD education ministers were beginning to express concern about the extent to which there was new divisions in their countries and beginning to ask the question not about what schools might do to cope with increasingly diverse communities, but what schools might do actually to help communities become more cohesive in their language. And I think schools have a responsibility to help their young people grow up in a way that will enable them to engage with the whole Australian community, not just the subgroup that their school represents.

JENNY BROCKIE: So do you see faith-based education as a problem then?

BARRY McGAW: No, I don't, personally and I have no concern about faith-based schools existing nor frankly am I concerned about them commending the faith on which they are based.

JENNY BROCKIE: But obviously you must be concerned a little bit about that, otherwise you wouldn't have come out and said the cohesion issue was a problem and that you were worried about subgroups developing in the community.

BARRY McGAW: Well, I was being asked about this in relation to the general discussion that had occurred across OECD countries about this very issue - schools divide on gender, on faith, on social class and so on - and that was the general point I was making. I'm not worried about choice in education, I'd like to see more choice in public sector, I'm not worried about faith-based schools commending the faith on which they're based. I think it's important how they handle dissent...

JENNY BROCKIE: And we'll get to that, I'm interested in that question of how dissent is handled. We'll get to that but John Kaye, before we do, I know you're a strong critic of some faith-based schools, why?

JOHN KAYE, GREENS NSW MP: Well, we're concerned about the impact of what we saw in that science classroom is going to have on the future. All of us have an investment in these children. They are what's going to inherit the future of our society and where there's a failure to separate out fact from theory, where there's a failure to separate out faith from evidence, then we have a real problem ahead of us. As a society we're going to cope with some very major problems, global warming, peak oil, an ageing society, these are things that require us to think collectively in a rational way. If we lose our commitment to evidence-based thinking, if we lose our commitment to rational thinking, we're going to confront these problems very badly.

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Faith does not undermine evidence-based research. John, you just misunderstand. You'll find evidence-based research in Christian, Jewish, Islamic schools. Just because you think science is the only thing that creates a desire for people to fix the planet, I'm afraid you're quite wrong.

JOHN KAYE: No, I never said that, Stephen.

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: The Islamic brother here says that God creates in us the desire to look after the planet and we want to do that the best way we can.

JOHN KAYE: And I don't doubt it.

JENNY BROCKIE: Comment from Stephen Law in London.

STEPHEN LAW: Well, I think children should certainly learn about the culture and the tradition into which they're born, that's an important part of their education. For me, though, it's important that they are also encouraged to reflect and engage critically with that culture and with that tradition. There was a poll conducted in the UK recently which revealed that 36% of young British Muslims think that the appropriate penalty for anyone who leaves the Muslim faith is death. Now, clearly the schools that they were attending were not communicating this message clearly enough.

JENNY BROCKIE: We will be looking at critical thinking and dissent in just a moment and we'll also visit a Jewish and an Islamic school and see a little bit of what they're teaching and Lisa Main recently visited a Jewish school in Melbourne.

MOUNT SCOPUS STORY:

REPORTER: Lisa Main

Mount Scopus is one of the most well-established Jewish schools in Melbourne. Part of the school's mission is to foster a love of Israel, Hebrew and Jewish culture. From kindergarten the students learn Hebrew. (Teacher speaks Hebrew) And they enjoy the community environment.

GIRL: It's like a family, it's so much fun and there's like - there's the cafe, there's the playground and the classrooms, and yeah, it's really fun all over. I think it's a great school.

BOY: We learn lots about our religion.

Today in preparation for a forthcoming festival, the younger students are learning biblical sources from the older students.

GIRL 2: The question here is why us, why we are the chosen people.

BOY 2: The whole reason that he was separated from the Jewish people was from how he killed and he was different to his brother, and so that's like the backbone of their culture, as opposed to our culture, which like the backbone is you shall NOT kill.

As the students move into middle school, they may take Israel studies. It's these kind of subjects that define the Jewish ethos of the school. Today the task of this class is to resolve the 1982 Lebanon war. And to do it they're getting into character. This young lady has just landed the role of Yasser Arafat.

TEACHER: At this stage they want to try and get rid of Israel to establish a Palestinian state.

GIRL 3: They're a terrorist organisation.

TEACHER: They're a terrorist organisation on one hand, they're committing terrorist activity. On the other hand they're trying to set up a homeland for the Palestinian people. So they're doing both at the same time.
So you're the Sunni Muslims, you're a group of Islam, you make up 29% of Lebanon. However, you believe that you're the biggest group in Lebanon.

While the war raged on, we moved across the hall to ask some Year 11 students what they felt their faith-based education had offered them.

STUDENT: Probably my own religion. I think it's interesting to learn about, you know, something that I'm connected to, something that I'm part of and that I belong to.

STUDENT 2: I like the Jewish life. There's always fun things to do at lunch time and stuff.

STUDENT 3: I just like that everyone feels like they're part of the community.


JENNY BROCKIE: Well, Sarah, you moved from another Jewish school to Mount Scopus there. How are the schools different?

SARAH RUBENSTEIN: Well, the first school that I moved from was a lot more religious and focused more on Jewish studies, and when I moved to Mount Scopus I got a feel that it was a lot more open and you were - your opinions were accepted a lot more than in my old school.

JENNY BROCKIE: In what sort of ways? What sort of things?

SARAH RUBENSTEIN: Well, we'd have different discussions about current issues today in looking to Jewish text and we could speak whatever we felt, our opinions were open, were accepted, whatever we said.

JENNY BROCKIE: Irfan, you're an Australian Muslim, you began your education in Australia and then you attended a madrassa in Pakistan. There were a lot of twists and turns in your education after that - tell us a little bit about those twists and turns.

IRFAN YUSUF: After being in a primary school in Pakistan during school hours and then madrassa before and after school, I ended up at Princeton. And after spending time at a madrassa where I was surrounded by boys with skull caps it was natural when I got to Princeton that I would gravitate toward another set of boys who also had skull caps and who also didn't eat pork at home and what have you.

JENNY BROCKIE: So you liked the Jewish boys?

IRFAN YUSUF: Oh, absolutely, yeah, and then I got back to Australia and went to Ryde East Primary School in the heart of John Howard - of what used to be John Howard's electorate and ended up at St Andrew's, where in Year 10 I was - we were taught or we were actually shown videos of a chap named Frances Schaffer.

JENNY BROCKIE: Now this is an Anglican school?

IRFAN YUSUF: Now this is an Anglican mainstream established Anglican school where we were shown videos of Frances Schaffer as regarded as the ideological founder of the moral majority and the festival of light.

JENNY BROCKIE: What did that mean in terms of your views then in exploring theocratic Islam, where did you end up? What did you end up thinking and believing?

IRFAN YUSUF: I guess what I really believed in was that you know, you had to have God in government. I mean, Frances Schaffer was very strong about the idea that, you know, that the Enlightenment was, you know, wasn't really a good idea - the French revolution, you know, was basically all about chopping heads that...

JENNY BROCKIE: So you ended up believing in sharia law or believing in an Islamic State?

IRFAN YUSUF: Well, I guess what I believed in was that you had to have God had to be in government in some way.

JENNY BROCKIE: So you were believing in an Islamic state, though, in the idea of an Islamic state?

IRFAN YUSUF: I guess, yeah, that's - I explored - that was part of my exploration.

JENNY BROCKIE: I'm interested in talking about this, because, as you know, there's been fierce community opposition to the establishment of some Islamic schools here in Australia for fear of radicalisation. Can you understand that concern?

IRFAN YUSUF: Not really, because from what I've seen, I mean, I've acted for them, I've seen the way they manage their industrial relations issues and what have you, and from what I've seen is that they really go tend to go, I think, almost go overboard in separating religious studies from the rest of the curriculum.

JENNY BROCKIE: Is that right, Ikebal, is that what happens?

IKEBAL PATEL: I wouldn't go that far. So to some extent what Irfan is saying is true, but at the same time there is a very set curriculum as established by the Education Department - my good brother from the Christian faith there said - that has to be followed, or else your registration, licensing, etc, won't happen.

JENNY BROCKIE: Let's a have a look at one of your schools in Canberra. Here's Lisa Main again.

ISLAMIC SCHOOL SYORY:

REPORTER: Lisa Main

GIRL 1: I like the culture. We get to go to the mosque and pray there.

GIRL 2: I really like sports and art.

GIRL 3: And here there's one culture all students, so yeah, it's easy to talk about stuff.

These are the students from the Islamic School of Canberra. The school is barely three years old and has only 86 students from kindergarten to Year 6. Each day school begins with a prayer. Islamic values are a core part of the curriculum as well as doing all the standard maths and English classes...

GIRL 4: Do we have to actually draw a hexagon?

..students are here to immerse themselves in a unique Islamic experience. Today these students are learning the Koran. They must memorise it by the time they reach Year 6.

REPORTER: What do you know about Christians who pray to another God?

GIRL 4: Yeah, they pray to a different God and they think that God's son is Jesus, but it's not. And the Christian go to the church and pray there.

Some of these students came from the State sector, seeking a safer environment where their religion was central.

GIRL 5: Most of my school years were spent in a normal school, so this is my first year at an Islamic school.

REPORTER: What do you enjoy about it?

GIRL 5: I enjoy that there's hardly - like there's no racism or like discrimination or anything.


JENNY BROCKIE: Ikebal, are these kids allowed to question the Koran?

IKEBAL PATEL: Absolutely.

JENNY BROCKIE: The Koran?

IKEBAL PATEL: That's right. That's all learning is all about.

JENNY BROCKIE: What would happen in an Islamic school if older children, for example, wanted to debate the comments of Sheik Hilali's, those controversial comments likening women to uncovered meat? What would happen in an Islamic school if that was brought up and people wanted to talk about it?

IKEBAL PATEL: There would be very healthy debate. There would be a lot of ridicule about the comments made, for instance, because people know that those aren't the teachings of Islam, and I think the whole subject matter would be put in its right perspective.

JENNY BROCKIE: Is that right, girls? Would you feel free to speak up and question the Koran at your school, have you ever done that?

MALALAI NOORI, AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY: Yep.

JENNY BROCKIE: Do you get other viewpoints coming into your school other than the Islamic viewpoint?

MALALAI NOORI: Yeah, we have interfaith all the time. Just the other day Mount Evelyn came to our school and we spoke about religions and comparison of religions, what you believe in, we what we believe in, things that we have in common and made friendships.

JENNY BROCKIE: Someone up the back wanted to say something. Yes, lady here, yep.

GIRL: I go to Thomas Hassle Anglican College and that's a Christian faith-based school. We do one hour of Christian studies per week and within that one hour over Year 10 we learnt about different religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam and a diverse range of other religions. Here we have the opportunity to explore more about them and come to our own conclusions about what we believe. I think it's healthy that way. We need to make up our own decisions on what we believe and not just get pushed into one corner.

JENNY BROCKIE: Yes, comment here?

WOMAN: I did eight years in a private Jewish girls' school and then I went to a public high school for the last four years of my high school education and there was no restriction on talking about religion, but it wasn't a focus. Everyone mixed.

JENNY BROCKIE: What about things that aren't taught, though? I mean, for example, some of the faith-based schools, how do you or do you teach sex education? Stephen O'Doherty?

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Of course we do, it's one of most important things we can help our young people to know about as they're developing.

JENNY BROCKIE: So what do you teach?

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: What do we teach? We teach that God has a plan for every person, that sexuality is an expression of wonderful joy which God has given to us to enjoy, that it's best enjoyed in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship in marriage and we teach that the most important protective behaviour that you can possibly follow is to abstain from sex before marriage and abstain from sex outside of marriage.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK, other comments on sex education, and that's one example of teaching, yep. Rabbi?

RABBI JAMES KENNARD: In my school, sex education, I would guess, is pretty similar in terms of what's covered to any other school. Perhaps the difference is that when we're teaching sex education in the science lessons we're also accompanying it by some introduction to the Jewish value, the Jewish view on sexuality, the Jewish view on marriage, which we think is an important way to accompany what the students are learning in science.

JENNY BROCKIE: Salah, what about you? You're principal of an Islamic school. Sex education, how is that dealt with at your school?

SALAH SALMAN, AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY: It is dealt with in the science subject, and they would get the religion point of view within the Islamic context of safe sex and marriage, and encourage good relationship, but not close sex relationship with a female - male and female.

JENNY BROCKIE: And what about texts that might be at odds with your religious beliefs? What about, for example, if there's a text, a novel or something like that where the central character is a homosexual? Would that be taught in these faith-based schools? Would you teach a book like that, Stephen, or would it be taken out of the curriculum in favour of another book because you wouldn't want to focus on homosexuality?

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Those books are taught in schools right throughout Australia and we engage with the world, seeking to understand it from our perspective and our understanding of how God has made the world and made us to interact with it.

JENNY BROCKIE: But you see what I'm getting at, don't you? I do see what you're getting at.

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Are we afraid of contrary ideas? No, we're not.

JENNY BROCKIE: How broad...

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Are we afraid of debate? No, we're not.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK, but I...

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Are we anti-intellectual religion? No, we're not.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK, Rabbi, your comment.

RABBI JAMES KENNARD: Well, I would give a similar answer. Such a book would be taught in context in the appropriate year group without necessarily condoning a particular lifestyle. Those books will contain a lot of characters who do a lot of things right and wrong - with moral judgments, without moral judgments, and of course we'll present those to the students, but could I... But can I come back to an earlier question? I think what we're doing here is your line of questioning is saying, "Is the curriculum identical to that of a public school? If so, good, and if not, bad." Now I think what you're hearing and the evidence that's coming out...

JENNY BROCKIE: No, I'm not saying that. I'm actually trying to work out what the curriculum actually is in faith-based schools.

RABBI JAMES KENNARD: I think what we're hearing is that the curriculum is pretty similar and there may be some changes, there may be some changes like any curriculum is selective because not every curriculum teaches everything there possibly can be. What we're talking about here is the right of parents to choose a school which conveys the values that those parents want conveyed to their children with the opportunity for children to accept or to reject, but at least to have those values presented to them and I feel that's the role of faith schools.

JENNY BROCKIE: John.

JOHN KAYE: To be fair, that's not what we heard at all. We heard from Mr O'Doherty that in his schools the abstinence theory is taught. The idea that the only sexual relationship you ought to have is one in marriage, which is fine, but then you don't teach about contraception. You expose...

JENNY BROCKIE: But John, what's wrong with that if that's the parents want? What's wrong with that if that's parents are sending their kids...

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: What's wrong is that you are wrong. He's actually wrong. What he is saying is factually incorrect.

JOHN KAYE: The abstinence theory is a known...

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: John has not visited our schools, he doesn't know.

JENNY BROCKIE: But you did mention abstinence. You did talk about abstinence.

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Of course I did, of course I did.

JENNY BROCKIE: Up the back, yep.

AULA IDRIS, AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY: As a Muslim we're taught about abstinence, that's how we're meant to function. But we're also taught about contraception 'cause we still need to know about it. Just because you're going to have, you know, sex when you're married doesn't mean that you don't need to know about it, you still do.

JENNY BROCKIE: Yes.

WOMAN: If I may make a comment - not belonging to any of these faiths, coming from a Hindu faith with a child who has gone through a primary public school education - my child spent six years in a scripture class without having his religion taught, painting pictures or watching videos. I would have rather seen the taxpayers' money put to good use teaching any kind of value system, whether it was basic philosophy or a spirituality or a discipline, something that should be inculcated in our young minds while we have that window of opportunity before they go into, you know, high school and choices and options, and it seems that all of these schools are offering that and it is a concern as a parent that our public school education doesn't inculcate some of those fundamental moral issues.

JENNY BROCKIE: That's a valid point, isn't it, Stephen Law? I mean, that is the reason why a lot of parents are sending their kids to these schools, because they want some kind of sense of moral values or they want a sense of values taught that they don't feel they get through the State system?

STEPHEN LAW: Yes, and I think that moral values should be taught in schools. I have this worry, really, about what's been said so far, that people are pointing to their own schools and saying, "My school's great," but of course that's not to say that all religious schools are like that. It's actually rather difficult to know what's going on in many religious schools. I would recommend that we make sure that all schools are brought up to certain minimum standards, that they are make sure...

JENNY BROCKIE: Let him finish, let him finish, please let him finish.

STEPHEN LAW: We make sure that every child in every school, religious or not, understands that they have a free choice about whether to believe or not to believe, that every school should have a critical culture in which children are given an opportunity to question, not just the minutiae but the overall belief system and that every child had the opportunity to meet people from other faiths and no faith to discuss and hear alternative points of view from those who actually hold them.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK, we're going to talk about whether they are in just a moment and we are going to look at what happens when different faith-based schools get together and the increased popularity of independent, faith-based schools. Lisa Main has been looking at what happens when different faith-based schools get together.


MOUNT EVELYN HIGH STORY:

REPORTER: Lisa Main

The school bus from Mount Evelyn High School was 30 minutes late. But no-one was counting, this was to be a day of understanding. The students from Mount Evelyn Christian School are here at the Australian International Academy to learn about Islam. To break the ice, the students form into small groups and discuss what they have in common.

WOMAN: This is a good one. That they have similar Bibles, a book, they have similar religious beliefs, they all like music, they all love to have fun. They love going to the cinemas and the obvious, they all love talking. OK, another table. Let's move over here.

BOY: They are a good family, they all love soccer but hate footie.....that we stick together through everything. My dad wears plate armour and my mum wears clothes. What? Who the hell wrote that?

After the ice was broken, it was time for an introduction to Islam.

BILAL ASSAD, ASSISTANT IMAM: So the first thing that any Muslim has to do is to really believe in their heart, personally between them and God, that there is only one God, there is only one creator. A woman is not a Muslim because her husband is, a Muslim girl doesn't wear the veil, what you see, the scarf, because her dad told her to or because her husband - if she's married, her husband forced her to. It's actually, you can't be a Muslim that way. It comes from the heart.

KATIE LAGERWEY, MOUNT EVELYN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: Do the girls wear the scarves outside of school or is it just a school uniform? And also, if it says in the Koran that people should wear the headscarves, how come the men don't wear that as well?

BILAL ASSAD: The reason behind it - you've asked a very heavy question, and the only real answer I'm going to give you about that one, which is why women wear the veil and why men don't, is because God is the one that commanded it to be this way.

PETRA COURTMAN, MOUNT EVELYN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: So we've heard a lot about the jihad on TV and stuff, can you tell us anything about that?

BILAL ASSAD: OK. It's a good question and obviously it's inevitable that someone is going to ask about that question, so it's a fair question. The word 'jihad' is an Arabic word, and literally in English it means to strive and struggle to that which is best and good for the wellbeing of yourself, the wellbeing of your family, the wellbeing of the people that live around you, the Muslims, and the wellbeing of the people who live around you who are also non-Muslims, for the wellbeing of animals and the environment also. So jihad is a huge area, it's not about killing.

On the way to the school mosque I ask Katie and Petra why they asked those questions.

KATIE LAGERWEY: Because culture seems so sexist.

PETRA COURTMAN: Just interesting to know why the men don't do the same things as women.

REPORTER: And were you satisfied with the answer?

KATIE LAGERWEY: Yeah. He explained what he believed, yeah, and it answered the question, yeah.

PETRA COURTMA: I guess it did answer, kind of open my eyes to what actually jihad is.

This interfaith program has been embraced by the Victorian education system in an effort to break down social barriers. But there are still some challenges.

GIRL: Before you came here and found out what Islam really is about, what did you guys think about, you know, Muslims?

GIRL 2: Like, you know. The class, that they weren't going to blow us up.

GIRL: Good. We were actually kidding about like before you guys came, like you guys were saying, "Oh my god, they're going to blow us up." We were like, oh, let's pretend we're going to blow them up. Just as a joke. Like yeah, but it's not really.

When the day was over some had made good friends. And I asked Mohammed what he got from the experience.

MOHAMMED EL-MOUSTARA, AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY: It is very nice to see that they are asking and they are willing to find out about our religion.

REPORTER; How do you reconcile the difference, what do you do then?

MOHAMMED EL-MOUSTARA: It doesn't make an actual difference, 'cause each person has got their own belief and each person's got their own mind to think and their own life to live, so it's not as if that if a person thinks this or if a person thinks that, it's not as how you should actually look at it. Each person's got their own decision to make and each person lives their life of how they want to live their life.



JENNY BROCKIE: Malalai, what are you most curious about when you visit other religious-based schools or faith-based schools?

MALALAI NOORI: Mostly I'm very curious about, you know, what's very different between us, why do people from the outside think, you know, these are Muslims they are characterised into a corner and these are Christian and those are Jewish and those are Hindu.

JENNY BROCKIE: Partly because you all go to different schools.

MALALAI NOORI: Not just because just of that, but we have so much in common. As we saw on the video, we're all teenagers at that time, during then, and we were just talking about how, oh, because we're teenagers yeah, we have the same likes and dislikes. Just because we believe in something else doesn't mean, you know, we can be characterised as different people.

JENNY BROCKIE: Caitlin, you've been, you go to a Christian school in Victoria. What have you learnt at interfaith days?

CAITLIN FISHER, MOUNT EVELYN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: Well, that's really our first interfaith day as such, but we do learn about a lot of different religions in one of our subjects. But it was really good just to get to know some of the girls there. They're just really normal people.

JENNY BROCKIE: And you didn't think they were before?

CAITLIN FISHER: No, actually I did. I was one in the class telling them that they weren't going to blow us up.

JENNY BROCKIE: Gosh, so are you serious? I mean, are you being serious about that, that there was that feeling amongst some of your other...

CAITLIN FISHER: I'm serious. Some of the boys are like, "Are they going to blow us up? Are they going to jihad us?"

JENNY BROCKIE: Mm, that's interesting. Sarah Rubenstein, you're also involved in a program where you go and meet students from other faith-based schools. What happens when you go?

SARAH RUBENSTEIN: Well, the program's called Building Bridges, so what it essentially means is to break down stereotypes. We get into small groups of different religions and we just talk what the similarities and differences are, and funnily enough, Islam and Judaism are very similar and it's interesting what they do that's different to what we do.

JENNY BROCKIE: Barry McGaw, do this sort of things, these interfaith days address some of the concerns that you have about cohesion?

BARRY McGAW: Yes, and in fact, interestingly, using the term 'bridging' as well, making connections and I like the idea that, in fact, the other faith isn't represented through the prism of a holder of a different faith, that people get a chance to hear it from a believer.

JENNY BROCKIE: Stephen Law, you mentioned earlier that you would like to see more, I suppose, more of a sort of formal system for the teaching of religion. What exactly do you mean? Are you suggesting that it be compulsory for schools to have other people in to teach religion, to teach about specific religions? And you mentioned atheism as well?

STEPHEN LAW: Yes, and atheism, yeah. I know from experience that if, as an atheist, you offer your services to a religious school very often you'll be turned down, despite the fact the school officially says that it's encouraging independent questioning and debate. I think the issue of social cohesion is very important. One of the reasons why, certainly in the UK, religious schools have been promoted is because there was a sense that individuals were fragmented and free floating, and that they needed to be glued back together again into communities, and it was felt that faith schools would provide the social adhesive to glue them together.
But of course, the downside to using religion as your glue is that as you glue individuals together into religious communities you very often produce bigger gaps, bigger divisions between those communities. There are alternatives to religious glue, by the way. There have been pilot programs of philosophy in schools, philosophy programs where children come together and collectively discuss and question, ask questions, the big questions, and those programs have demonstrated not just that children are measurably smarter as a result, but they're also less - there's less incidence of bullying, they're more emotionally and morally sophisticated and there's a kind of ethos and a sense of community and belonging that comes with that kind of program.

JENNY BROCKIE: Comments from people here about that, yeah, gentleman here. You can sit down.

MAN: The gentleman from across was mentioning two things that are really interesting to me, and I thought, that is the one glue that you can find that is bridging between different religious traditions and philosophies. And the other thing - he actually mentioned the word 'philosophy' and I'm overjoyed at that, because it's not something beyond the reach of kids. There are very simple ways of discussing, explaining even the deepest of philosophies and at the level of philosophy underlying religions, you can find a greater unity and bind people together if you can have discussions at that level.

JENNY BROCKIE: Yes, Barry.

BARRY McGAW: I made the distinction between bonding and bridging social capital before that bridging social capital is most readily built in the presence of strong bonding social capital that links are formed between groups that are themselves cohesive.

JENNY BROCKIE: But I get back to the point that you had originally raised concerns about subgroups and this was widely reported. And I'm just interested, I'm interested in how that sits with what you're saying?

BARRY McGAW: My view is that if schools build only bonding social capital, if communities withdraw and link only to themselves and don't connect with the broader Australian community, then that's a problem.

JENNY BROCKIE: And how do we guarantee that they do, how do we ensure that that happens?

BARRY McGAW: I mean, you can't think about coercion as the mechanism for making things happen. It just doesn't work in a democratic country like ours.

JENNY BROCKIE: So I guess then it's a question of accountability and at what point do we decide as a community that we're going to fund schools and how are we going to make them accountable?

GEOFFREY WILSON, MOUNT EVELYN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: Through an accreditation system that actually happens and exists already, where people come from State Government in Victoria every six years, schools are visited and they spend a day going through a whole set of criteria, ranging from the very mundane through to looking at the curriculum, looking at the resources in the libraries and they issue a report which comes back to that.

JENNY BROCKIE: We have seen examples where that hasn't worked, I have to say.

JOHN KAYE: It's a nice story.

GEOFFREY WILSON: I'm sorry, it's not a story, it's true.

JOHN KAYE: But it's not the reality of what's going on.

JENNY BROCKIE: I'm just really interested in the idea of dissent and discussion in here tonight, because there's quite a few people who won't let people finish.

RABBI JAMES KENNARD: Some schools have been closed down because they haven't been meeting the criteria, that shows the system works.

JOHN KAYE: In the extreme case only. We see time and time again stories of schools that haven't been appropriately investigated, we saw the story of Lakeside Christian School in Tweed Heads that hadn't been looked at in 15 years, that had been cooking the books for 15 years and then went bankrupt. We've seen time and time again examples where the whole registration process and the whole accreditation process both State and federal has failed.

JENNY BROCKIE: Stephen, I'd like you to comment on that, because Lakeside Christian College was - enrolments were falsified to get millions of dollars of extra funds. So do you think there's enough monitoring and accountability and was there enough in the case of that school?

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: No, clearly not. In that school a principal submitted statutory declarations, which are sworn statements, that were false and the law will deal with that. So the law will take - the law will take its course, justice will be done.

JENNY BROCKIE: But do you think that school was closely enough monitored for the whole time that was happening? That's my question.

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: Jenny, if I could talk in general terms, it would be great if everybody always did the honest thing,

JOHN KAYE: The school went bankrupt. It fell apart.

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: It's just not the case as some people have suggested, it's not accountability. There's plenty of accountability. But Jenny, what we're seeing here... We're seeing a system that says what Australia should do is to squeeze religion out of public life and squeeze religion out of education and that will make us all happier. What you've seen here is the exact opposite of that, that Australia works because we enliven our young people to think about their faith.

JENNY BROCKIE: I don't think anyone's suggested squeezing religion out of public life tonight, really... ..have they?

STEPHEN O’DOHERTY: I think several people have suggested it. Well, the Australian education system has worked on the basis of this secularity is the only way, to have kids learning side by side is the only way to make multiculturalism work. Actually what we're saying is there's something very different happening. You enliven a young person to think about their faith, that makes them interested in other faiths and that creates both the bonding and the bridging capital that Barry McGaw says is the way forward, and we'd agree. We think this is making Australia work.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK, Ikebal, just on the question of accountability, I also wanted to ask you about the Islamic school that's been shut down after reportedly failing to follow the State curriculum and employing unregistered teachers. A director has been charged with fraud in that case too. Do you think there's a need for more transparency, more accountability for schools?

IKEBAL PATEL: I really don't think there is. I think what is happening in schools right now - and let's be blunt about it - education has become an enterprise in Australia. We are under pressure and let's not joke about that in terms of whether we're doing the right thing or not in trying to not be serious. If we really want to get good Muslim citizens out there - and I'll be, you know, talking about Muslims - then if you take money out of the equation, if you really get the Government to do what they're required to do and scrutinise the accounts, scrutinise the census data, go in heavy into what facilities there are, if you are getting money from the government then you need to put it back in the community.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK Barry McGaw, you're heading up this National Curriculum Board. I wonder what you think about what you've heard tonight and whether there are implications for any of this in national curriculum, be it for State schools, for public schools or for non-government schools?

BARRY McGAW: Well, I conduct the issue in one respect, the national curriculum's concerned only with English, maths, the sciences and history at the moment, not with the whole curriculum. There's a lot more that goes on in schools than those subjects. As I was saying before, I think it's very important that we look at the place of faith in Australian life, not just in schools that are based on particular faiths but in all of our schools.

JENNY BROCKIE: Final comment from you, Stephen Law, from London. Well, this is a crucially important issue.

STEPHEN LAW: I read a book a little while ago by Pearl and Samuel Oliner called 'The Altruistic Personality', and the Oliners looked at the background of those who rescued Jews during the Holocaust to see what marked them out, what was special about them. They found that religious belief had some small effect, positive effect, but what really marked out the rescuers from the non-rescuers was the fact that they had been raised to think, to question, to have empathy with other people, not just to passively and uncritically accept. It seems to me that those are the kind of citizens that we should make sure that we're raising in all of our schools. This is too important just to leave it to schools to decide how they're going to run things. We need to make sure that certain minimum standards are met, there should be interfaith days, every child should understand that they have a free choice about whether to believe or not to believe and every child should be presented with a range of views, including atheism and humanism, from those who actually hold those views rather than that they be filtered through, say, their particular religious teacher. I think that these are terribly important safeguards that we need now to put in place.

JENNY BROCKIE: We are going to have to leave it there, I'm afraid, and I know a lot of people will have a lot more they want to say. You can say it on our website at: That is it for this week. I should point out that we approached 38 other faith-based schools to join us tonight. They all declined, but sincere thanks to those who have come along, I do really appreciate your input in the discussion.