Articles

Need some questions to get your Board of Trustees thinking about Bible in Schools? Here are six simple questions that will get the conversation going and get people thinking.

Secular Education campaigners David Hines and Tanya Jacob are over the moon about a High Court decision today (18 July) to let them take a fast-track to their day in court.

Why haven’t the Human Rights Commission said anything about religious discrimination in our secular state primary schools? For years they have ignored this issue and never made any public statements on the ethics of boards of trustees imposing Bible classes in a non-religious school.

The Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand seems content to join the list of other organisations that are happy to sit on their hands and do nothing when they should be standing up for the children who are forced out of their own classrooms, coerced into religious indoctrination, bullied and mistreated by the teachers, board members, school administration, evangelical church volunteers and parents who make it happen.

The NZEI has supported access for religious groups to our non-religious state primary schools for decades. Why haven’t they reviewed their policy and why aren’t they protecting teachers and children from this discriminatory practice?

Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a mechanism of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (HRC). The HRC uses the UPR process to examine the human rights performance of all 193 UN members, including New Zealand.  Tanya Jacob of the Secular Education Network has prepared the following submission. I personally find it extremely disappointing that we have to appeal to the United Nations for assistance with religious discrimination within our own secular education system when SEN have been waiting (without even an initial consultation) nearly 2 years for a Human Rights Tribunal hearing within our own country.

What happens when you try and have a discussion with a bible in schools teacher about why religious instruction isn’t a good idea? It’s not unlike beating your head against a wall!

Ever wondered that Bible in Schools classes teach? The Secular Education Network has been able to gain access to a teacher manual for year three. This article is taken from a brochure handed out to parents by the Secular Education Network at Glendowie Primary School in Auckland. It covers some of what is taught.

There is a degree of “religion by stealth” in our education system. Christians embed their preferred god in Maori cultural observances and when challenged, say that “Maori are Christians”. But Maori are hardly any more Christian than the rest of us. So why are Christian prayers acceptable when part of a karakia or a kapa haka lesson? Ngaire McCarthy gives her views.

A complaint I made to the Advertising Standards Authority has been rejected without review on appeal. The ASA ignored their own processes for assessing an appeal application, misrepresented my complaint and ignored the evidence. Is it religious bias or just wilful ignorance in response to a tricky and controversial issue involving religion?