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Australian schools will be able to choose to employ chaplains or secular welfare officers in a programme announced recently by Education Minister Peter Garrett.
According to the ABC, the $222 million program has been under fire since being announced in the budget, with the Greens concerned that chaplains had to be attached to religious organisations and the scheme did not mandate minimum qualifications.
Currently 2,700 schools around Australia employ chaplains and the new money will fund welfare officers to 1,000 more, the ABC reports.
“We know chaplains are already doing great work in our school communities and I expect that many more schools will apply for funding to employ a chaplain when applications for the new round open later this year,” Mr Garrett said in a statement.
“But we also want to give schools greater choice. This means schools won’t miss out on applying for the program if the school community would prefer to have a secular welfare worker instead of a chaplain.”
Australian opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne is critical of the Government, pointing out it has failed to keep another of its election promises, to keep the chaplaincy program intact.
“The Government lied to the school chaplains before the last election and the school chaplains should now realise today that the undermining and the dismantling of their program has begun,” Pyne said.
Mr Pyne is of the view the government wants to close the chaplaincy programme down.
“The Government has delivered a victory for the secularists who have taken the chaplains to the High Court. They will be popping champagne corks today because they will recognise, as I do, that this is the beginning of the undermining of the chaplaincy program,” he said.
Jesus scrapped as historical reference point
Late last week, the Australian government scrapped Jesus Christ as a reference point for historical dates.
Instead the new curriculum will introduce secular terminology.
Instead of ‘BC’ (Before Christ) and ‘AD’ (Anno Domini, meaning ‘the year of our Lord’), the curriculum will instead refer to ‘BCE’ (Before Common Era) and ‘CE’ (Common Era), two equivalent systems.
A third term, ‘BP’ (or ‘before present’), is also being introduced, where it is standard practice to refer to the year 1950 as the beginning of the ‘present’. Under this system, for example, the year 1930 would be referred to as 20 BP.
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News category: World.
