AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

PRESS RELEASE 443

PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION

22 September 2011

In Australia, Public schools are open to teachers and employees without religious discrimination.

Sectarian schools on the other hand, are permitted to practice religious discrimination against teachers and other employees.

Yet sectarian schools are very heavily subsidized with public money.

Should this form of discrimination be permitted in a country which gives even lip service to separation of religion and the State?

Although, for the moment, this question remains dormant in the Australian context, it has been taken to the UK Parliament by the National Secular Society.

Information on recent developments in the UK are outlined on

http://www.secularism.org.uk/nss-intervention-aims-to-protect.html

and

http://www.secularism.org.uk/nss-challenges-faith-school-empl.html

DOGS summarises some of this information below.

The National Secular Society in the UK initiated amendments to the UK Education Bill that designed to reduce the extent to which discrimination is permitted against non-religious teachers by the law against teachers in faith and community schools.

The amendments tabled by NSS honorary associates Baroness Turner and Lord Avebury concerned legislation that discriminates against teachers who do not share the faith of the school. This includes the repeal of Section 60(5) of the School Standards and Framework Act which permits 100% discrimination in voluntary aided faith schools and is widely thought by lawyers to be incompatible with the European Employment Directive.

At present, the law permits teachers of the “wrong” faith or none to be discriminated against in all schools with a religious character – a third of all state subsidised schools.

Another of the amendments sought to maintain existing protection for community school teachers who do not lead worship or teach religious education when these schools are privatised and become academies. Such protection is being eroded by the Education Bill.

Many of the amendments were in accordance with legal advice given to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This advice agrees with the NSS that existing and proposed legislation falls short of minimum protection for teachers. It is regrettable that the EHRC kept the opinion to itself for nearly three months, particularly as this was while the Bill was considered by the Commons’ Bill Committee.

The Bishop of Hereford argued that the most important thing was that faith schools were able to sustain their ‘religious character’. He said “Governance, employment, admissions, denominational worship and denominational religious education are the mechanisms by which the trustees, via the governing body and the religious authority, are able to ensure that the terms of their trust are being carried out.”

In reply to the Bishop, Lord Avebury said “He was suggesting that because I was an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, I was in some way trying to undermine the dual system [state funded faith schools], when all I am trying to do is to ensure that the trusts which administer faith schools do so in conformity with both European directives and with the European Human Rights Act.”

In closing the debate, Baroness Turner told the House “like most secularists, I also believe in equality. We also believe in freedom of religion. All we object to is that beliefs that we and other people do not share are simply imposed on us whether we like them or not. That is really what a lot of this is about. These amendments seek to protect the position of people who do not share a religious point of view but who nevertheless may be very good teachers.”

As is the custom at Committee stage, Baroness Turner withdrew the amendments, but not before Lord Hill, speaking on behalf of the Government, promised a detailed response to the legal points and a meeting at the next stage of the Bill to discuss issues raised by the NSS.

Read the full Hansard transcript of the debate on the NATIONAL Secular Society website.

Conclusion

Citizens and politicians in the UK are active. When will our politicians have the guts to question discrimination against teachers ( not to mentions pupils) by Australian sectarian institutions?

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