Religious schools 'undermine cohesion'

By THE AGE
Added: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Linda for the link.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/religious-schools-undermine-cohesion-20090712-dheb.html

Farrah Tomazin
July 13, 2009

The rise of faith-based schools in Australia is restricting the ability of some students to relate to people of diverse backgrounds, a university sociologist has warned.

University of Technology Sydney professor Andrew Jakubowicz says that while public schools have traditionally had a crucial role in allowing students of broad backgrounds to "operate quite comfortably in different cultural environments", the proliferation of ethno-religious schools - largely because of federal government funding policies - has had social consequences.

"There is little doubt that the Howard government strategy (continued by the Rudd Government) of directing federal funds to private schools suits the idea of the market and the ideology of choice," says Professor Jakubowicz, co-director of the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, in a discussion paper to be released today.

"However, it may significantly undermine three key struts in the whole edifice of social cohesion and modern citizenship - namely intercultural competence, secularism as a core social value and interactive life-long learning."

In recent years, increased public funding to non-government schools has led to a sharp rise in the number of students attending private schools. Today, almost 40 per cent of students in Australia are enrolled in faith-based schools, including those of the Irish Catholic tradition, Greek Orthodox, Jewish and Islamic schools.

Professor Jakubowicz said he was not "getting stuck into" any particular types of ethno-religious schools. Rather, he said, "the place where the buck stops on this is the national government level, where some of the consequences have not been considered".

"I'm not really concerned about what ethno-religious school it is, but just that the proliferation of ethno-religious schools - whatever the driver - has social consequences. I think the main negatives are the reduction in the capacity of people to communicate and work effectively in a cross-cultural environment," he said.

His paper will be presented to a NSW public school teachers' conference today.