NEWS Opinion: Allocating $245.3m for school chaplains at odds with Budget cuts MIKE BRUCE THE SUNDAY MAIL (QLD) JUNE 01, 2014 12:00AM AS FISCAL damnation rains down on the nation and we are all set to burn in the fires of financial purgatory, salvation will come, apparently, in the form of school chaplains. OK, I may have gone overboard with the Dante-esque imagery here. To put it in more restrained terms: When the nation is in the grips of a supposed Budget emergency, why is the Abbott Government spending about a quarter of a billion dollars for chaplains in our schools? The extension of $245.3 million in funding for school chaplains in a secular nation is curious in itself. More curious is removal of the option for schools to hire a secular chaplain, which would seem to give the program an unambiguously Christian slant. That makes even more curious the stipulation that chaplains should not evangelise or counsel students. If that is the case, I wonder what exactly chaplains are doing in our schools. There is no confusion on the part of Scripture Union Queensland, which employs most of the state’s chaplains. In its Profile and Role Statement for chaplains, it lists under essential duties: “facilitate Christian activities on school campuses with voluntary student participation” and “connect students with local Christian churches with parents’/caregivers’ permission”. The Abbott Government’s quarter of a billion dollars will bring to almost $670 million that has been spent on the school chaplaincy program since it was introduced by John Howard in 2006. HIGH COURT: School chaplaincy program faces second challenge In the context of today’s contribute-and-build and end-of-the-age-of-entitlement Zeitgeist, providing chaplains in schools seems akin to handing out bibles to the starving. This jumbled set of educational priorities hit home on Thursday when I heard a heartfelt plea from a Brisbane woman who called a radio talkback session with Premier Campbell Newman. She was a secondary school teacher and the mother of a child who attends a special-needs school. She had recently returned to the workforce – no doubt doing her bit in this contribute-and-build economy – but was struggling to juggle career and parenting, as the school offered no after-school care. INQUIRY: Brisbane chaplain on mission to disciple kids, families Abbott stares down political pain 2:50 Play video cdn.newsapi.au/image/v1/external?url=content6.video.news.au/1qcjF5bTo_bpnSGGgvbACFzujusSuLmt/promo224778423&width=650&api_key=kq7wnrk4eun47vz9c5xuj3mc PM Abbott warns the public to accept necessary budget medicine, despite disastrous results in the polls. After-school care is the modern reality of our double-income culture and a fixture in most state schools. The challenges for parents of special-needs children are large enough without the obstacle of having no reliable option for after-school care. On the face of it, this woman would seem to be discriminated against by virtue of having a special-needs child. You wonder what she must make of schools being given $245.3 million to fund school chaplains. You could argue it would be a greater Christian gesture to provide essential services for those less fortunate, those disadvantaged through no fault of their own. And what about the range of preventive health programs that have also been victims of the Abbott Government razor gang and which arguably also provide huge benefit to school-age children? PLAN: LNP considers letting schools use education funds for chaplains The Abbott Government’s quarter of a billion dollars will bring to almost $670 million that has been spent on the school chaplaincy program since it was introduced by John Howard in 2006. Courting the crossbenchers 2:22 Play video cdn.newsapi.au/image/v1/external?url=content6.video.news.au/s3MG0zbjqZ3WOQsnZPD-nz1npxGer3TO/promo225707299&width=650&api_key=kq7wnrk4eun47vz9c5xuj3mc Tony Abbott is struggling to win over the key senators he needs to pass his Budget, with one saying hes too busy with work to even meet with the Prime Minister Howard argued that chaplains benefited the overall health of a school. So does airconditioning, or an extra teacher, or another bassoon for the school orchestra. I’m sure there are many principals who’d love to put some of the $72,000 available under the program to other, more core uses around their schools. I don’t doubt there are many excellent, motivated and well intentioned chaplains working in our schools. I am sure many provide a benefit to the culture and health of the school and are not on a mission to convert our young. In my daughter’s primary school the chaplain is a delightful, sunny woman whose presence is valued by the children and the school community in which myriad religions are represented. The question is less about the rights and wrongs of chaplaincy per se. Rather, in these times of supposed financial austerity when words such as “efficiency” and “accountability” eddy through political discussions, it is how can we justify such a luxury? Why is a non-essential adjunct to our children’s education not facing the same kind of budgetary scrutiny as other elements of the education system? Is it part of an ideological crusade from the standard-bearers of a conservative religious right in the Abbott Government which believes moral rectitude comes mainly from faith in a Christian god? Or, given the support by both sides of politics, is it a vote-buyer, a move to appease a fervent and vocal constituency? VIDEO: Abbott, budget will pass eventually 3:30 Play video cdn.newsapi.au/image/v1/external?url=content6.video.news.au/s5NGcxbjqS-HTl7Khum5tBVzOcbs1dt4/promo225172895&width=650&api_key=kq7wnrk4eun47vz9c5xuj3mc PM Tony Abbott says he wont surrender his budget to mounting pressure to compromise over unpopular measures Whatever the case, I think it’s fair to expect that when you choose a secular education for your child you should get just that. I was only slightly uncomfortable about the chaplaincy program under its previous incarnation when secular chaplains could work in the school. The Abbott Government’s new insistence on Christian chaplains, however, makes me decidedly more uncomfortable about the real aims of the program. What makes me most uncomfortable is the nation spending $245.3 million for Christian chaplains, when our political leaders sermonise about the need for fiscal belt-tightening, when education funding is in the crosshairs, when a child with a disability can’t get after-school care. If our politicians want to see a greater Christian influence in our schools, it should not be at the cost of an increasingly secular nation. Particularly if we’re in the grips of a Budget emergency. couriermail.au/news/opinion/opinion-allocating-2453m-for-school-chaplains-at-odds-with-budget-cuts/story-fnihsr9v-1226938435156
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 07:22:02 +0000
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