NSW public schools should spend government funding on tackling obesity and promoting wellness and positive psychology rather than the untested chaplaincy program that are in hundreds of the state’s schools, the head of Sydney’s Anglican Education Commission has argued.
As the Federal Government considers the fate of its National School Chaplaincy Program after the High Court ruled the commonwealth could not fund it, the executive director of the commission, Bryan Cowling, said there was no evidence the chaplaincy program was effective.
Dr Cowling, a former head of curriculum in the NSW Department of Education, said a long-term goal of public schools should be to replace scripture classes with a mandatory “world view and ethics” class providing students with a “broad exposure” to many religions.
This is a very serious matter.
The Anglican Education Commission was set up on the direction of the Synod of Sydney Diocese in 2006. Why is its head now calling for scripture classes to be replaced with “world view and ethics” classes? This is a concept which extremist liberals have been pushing and which the Archbishop of Sydney strongly and publicly opposed.
Who recruited Dr Cowling to this job? I understand there is a ten member board of governance – did they choose him?
Questions need to be asked by Standing Committee, and in Synod when it next meets.