Bibles in Schools issue goes to Human Rights Commission

Friday, July 4th, 2014

A parent has taken concerns about religious teaching to the Human Rights Commission in the latest effort to remove the lessons from state school time.

Red Beach School north of Auckland has been in a long-running dispute with parent Jeff McClintock over its Values in Action lessons, which are 30 minutes a week and teach values through Bible stories.

Now Mr McClintock, a member of the Secular Education Network, has laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission. His daughter attends a state school in Red Beach on the Hibiscus Coast in Auckland New Zealand.

Mr McClintock said he was laying the complaint now in an effort to improve things before his son Lee, 4, started at Red Beach next year.

Board chairman Antony Wentworth said the school was aware of Mr McClintock’s desire to remove religion-based teaching. “The board has completed a number of reviews of this programme [including] responding to an inquiry Mr McClintock took to the Chief Ombudsman and the Ministry of Education in 2012.”

By law, state schools are secular, but can choose to “close” during school hours for half an hour of religious lessons each week.
A survey by the Secular Education Network last year found one in three state primary and intermediate schools teaches religious instruction.
One organisation running Bible lesson.

Source