Following weeks of protests, Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris has spoken out in defence of this freedom of expression.

Principal dismissal sparks tensions

The dismissal of Christian Espeso, principal of Immaculate Conception High School in Pau, southern France, has stirred national controversy. On 11 September, the local education authority removed Espeso from office, citing "breaching secularism" after he introduced confessions during school hours and required students to attend a conference led by a bishop.

"Many of us are stunned" stated the Diocese of Bayonne's Directorate of Catholic Education on 13 September, calling the decision "totally disproportionate in light of the facts".

Immaculate Conception High School, under Espeso's leadership, ranked first in its region and fourth nationally.

Archbishop defends religious expression

Archbishop Ulrich addressed the controversy on Radio Notre Dame, emphasising the importance of religious expression within Catholic institutions.

"We must be able to proclaim the Gospel in Catholic schools" he stated. "There are people who want to silence us."

The archbishop's comments come as the debate intensifies over the role of Catholic schools in a secular society. Currently, Catholic schools educate about 17% of French pupils and represent 95% of all private schools in the country.

Balancing secularism and religious identity

French Catholic schools operate under a 1959 agreement that requires them to follow the same curriculum as public institutions while maintaining their Catholic identity. The state pays the salaries of their teachers who are inspected by the Ministry of Education. In return, the schools agree to welcome students of all backgrounds and make catechism classes optional.

However, the balance between state oversight and religious autonomy appears to be shifting. In January, a group of public education representatives called for an end to state funding for Catholic schools, claiming that the current system undermines France's commitment to secularism.

Changing religious landscape

Philippe Gaudin, director of the Public Institute for the Study of Religions and Secularism, attributed the growing tensions to a shifting religious landscape in France.

"There is a huge decline in Christian religious practice" Gaudin told OSV News. "At the same time, there is a growing presence of Muslims who are loudly asserting their identity and their demands. This is something new. So the state is trying to put in place a public policy to manage all this."

The dismissal of Espeso has become a flashpoint in this wider debate over how religious institutions operate within France's secular framework.

Source

• CNA

While the exact causes remain a matter of speculation, it is thought that excessive electronic device screen time among the very young and possibly the lingering impact of the coronavirus-related lockdowns of 2020 and reduced in-person socialisation are likely key factors driving the trend.

Developmental delays

Maria Riestra-Quintero, president of the Florida Head Start Association, who spoke at an Aug. 9 conference in Miami, talked to the Florida Catholic, Miami's archdiocesan news outlet, about her concerns.

"We have seen an increase recently in children with all sorts of developmental delays — mainly in speech and language, and we think it has to do with use of tablets in the early years," she said.

She added that 90 percent of the brain "develops in the first five years of life and with a (electronic device) tablet a child doesn't have a feedback loop."

"If we are having a conversation I am asking you questions, you are responding to me then that is what we call a feedback loop and that develops receptive and expressive language," said Riestra-Quintero.

She is the assistant director of early childhood programs in the Head Start/Early Head Start Division of Miami-Dade County's Community Action and Human Services Department.

She refers to the screen time usage guidelines set forth by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, which has detailed recommendations on managing a child's screen time according to age.

Screen time includes interaction with smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, TVs and computers.

How much screen time?

The Academy recommends:

Until 18 months of age limit screen use to video chatting along with an adult (for example, with a parent who is out of town).

Between 18 and 24 months screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver.

For children 2-5, limit noneducational screen time to about one hour per weekday and three hours on the weekend days.

On average, children ages 8-12 in the United States spend four to six hours a day watching or using screens, and teens spend up to 9 hours.

Too much screen time can be harmful

While screens can entertain, teach and keep children occupied, too much use may lead to problems, according to the academy.

The results of overuse can include sleep problems, poor academic performance, poor reading habits, less social time, reduced outdoor and physical activity, obesity, mood problems, and poor self-esteem and body image issues.

"If you use a tablet there is receptive language but not expressive language, so you cannot express yourself," Riestra-Quintero said.

"You are listening, you are taking in, but when it's time to express your feelings, your emotions and to be able to communicate we are seeing that many students are coming in with a greater gap since COVID," she said. Read more

• Tom Tracy writes for OSV News from Florida.

Data shows the only statistics growing regarding youth employment, training and education are those recording their unemployment and disengagement from learning.

Unrewarding start

In the year to March 2024, Radio NZ says 12.4 percent of 15 to 24-year olds were not in employment, education or training (NEET). Of these, 14.2 percent were female.

These data indicate a marked increase from those reported at the end of March 2023. At that time, 10.9 percent of young people were in the NEET group; of those, 11.5 percent were young women.

For those aged 20 to 24, the rate was significantly higher this year than last. Over 18 percent of women in this age bracket were in the NEET group, up 27 percent year-on-year.

A Wellington mother whose now 21-year-old has lived on the benefit for the past three years wants more for him.

"Ultimately I really want them to get into something engaging and enriching. I want them to have a pathway to independence, to going flatting" she says.

Other parents share her aims.

Regional variation

The worst place to be if you're a young NEET is Northland.

It had the highest NEET rate at the end of March this year at 16.3 percent of people aged 15 to 24. The Bay of Plenty is next in line at 16.2 percent says Craig Renney, Council of Trade Unions policy director and economist.

Renney is concerned.

He says that young people in this situation are facing a potential "huge challenge" throughout their lives. Wage and employment scarring can happen when their labour market prospects deteriorate as a direct result of an initial spell of unemployment

"The longer they spend NEET, the worse the labour market outcomes tend to be for those people."

Renney says it's possible that young women's unemployment is a reflection of what's happening in the industries they had typically been employed in.

"We know construction is struggling, manufacturing is struggling but perhaps not as much as high street retail. Perhaps not as much as the more female-dominated industries."

Apprenticeships are often shed during downturns, Renney observes.

"Then when the upswing comes as inevitably as the downswing, and we suddenly need apprentices, we don't have any."

What to do

Helping NEET young people to stay in New Zealand and use or develop their skills here is important Renney says.

"Do they [the ones with skills] stay in-country? If they've got skills and not in education, employment or training they might say 'stuff this I'm going to Oz' and they don't come back. That's a permanent loss on that side.

"The longer you're out of employment the harder it is to get back in, that's why interventions at that point in life are so vital."

Source

• RNZ

Despite the increasing recognition of its importance, a comprehensive understanding of how school belonging impacts long-term mental wellbeing has remained elusive.

New adolescent mental health study

Our new study investigating school belonging and mental health outcomes in adulthood aimed to address this gap in knowledge.

It planned to examine the enduring effects of school belonging on the mental health trajectory from adolescence into adulthood.

School belonging, as defined by Goodenow and Grady, refers to the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported in their school environment.

This concept encompasses students' positive feelings towards their school, the quality of their relationships with teachers, and their sense of social value among peers.

Shedding light on the long-term effects

While the immediate benefits of school belonging to mental health are well-documented, its long-term effects haven't been thoroughly explored.

Our recent study, conducted through a collaborative effort from Monash University, Deakin University, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, and the University of Melbourne, has shed light on this issue.

The research involved more than 1,500 young adults, drawing from one of Australia's longest-running population-based studies on socioemotional development.

It specifically examined how school belonging at the age of 15-16 influenced mental health outcomes at later life stages, specifically at ages 19-20, 23-24, and 27-28.

The findings of this study are revealing.

Higher levels of school belonging at the age of 15-16 were associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress in young adulthood.

This association underscores the significance of adolescent school belonging as a protective factor against future mental health issues.

The implications of these results are profound.

They highlight the need for sustained interventions and programmes that not only address school belonging.

They would also extend their influence beyond the educational setting to foster positive engagement in various life domains during the transition to adulthood.

The timing of these findings is critical, given the increasing emphasis on belonging as a key educational trend by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD points to belonging as a means to counteract the rising trends of loneliness, social isolation, and mental health problems in many societies.

Lasting impact on wellbeing

The long-term follow-up of individuals in the Australian Temperament Project, which underpinned this study, provides a unique and significant contribution to the evidence base.

It shows how experiences of school belonging have lasting effects on young adults' wellbeing.

The research also highlights the importance of school belonging as an intervention target for lasting impacts on mental health.

As schools and communities navigate the challenges faced by today's youth, initiatives that enhance students' sense of acceptance and respect within the school environment are paramount.

These initiatives not only contribute to immediate mental health benefits but also lay the foundation for ongoing positive mental health into adulthood.

Further, the study reinforces the notion that schools are pivotal environments for mental health prevention and promotion.

As places where young people spend a significant amount of their time, schools have the opportunity to create environments that promote a sense of belonging and, in turn, support mental health.

This approach is especially crucial for vulnerable young people who may not have supportive conditions elsewhere.

Taking preventative measures

In light of these findings, it's clear that to prevent mental health issues in adulthood, efforts must start early, particularly in school settings.

Promoting school belonging and student wellbeing can act as a preventative measure against various vulnerabilities, including adverse home conditions.

This underscores the role of educational institutions not just as places of academic learning but as critical settings for fostering mental wellbeing.

The study was conducted by Monash University, Deakin University, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, and the University of Melbourne.

It represents a significant step forward in understanding the complex relationship between school belonging and long-term mental health.

It provides valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and mental health professionals, emphasising the need for integrated approaches that address the multifaceted aspects of school belonging.

The impact of school belonging on long-term mental health wellbeing is a crucial area of research that warrants further attention.

As the evidence base grows, it becomes increasingly clear that initiatives aimed at enhancing school belonging can have far-reaching effects on the mental health of young people.

The challenge now is to translate these findings into practical strategies and interventions that can be implemented across educational settings to foster environments where all students feel valued, supported, and included.

• First published in Lens. Republished with Monash University's permission
• Kelly-Anne Allen is an Associate Professor, School of Educational Psychology and Counselling, Faculty of Education at Monash University

Micah has severe non-verbal autism which means he requires dedicated attention in a school setting. However, the majority of specialist schools in the country are unable to take in new students due to resource issues.

Even though he'd been on a wait list since 2022, Micah was one of the 40-odd students at Rosehill specialist school in Papakura who were told last month that they would not have a spot in 2024. Read more

There's been a steady increase in roll numbers, according to the Ministry of Education.

Immigrants boost school rolls

An immigration-driven surge in enrolments is adding to the pressure. The national school roll is now topping 831,038 children.

In Invercargill, Catholic co-ed Verdon College has reached its maximum enrolment number.

The school must hold spots for preference pupils, says principal Jarlath Kelly (pictured).

"It's been a bit tricky for us and we've had to turn people away - and we're just trying to hold on to places for our preference students, being a Catholic school."

Verdon College has many pupils from immigrant families which has been positive for the school, Kelly says.

"A lot of our new-to-New Zealand families are from the Philippines and we have a very vibrant and thriving Filipino community. We have done for some years so that's another positive for us."

The school welcomes new New Zealanders. Communication is eased by employing staff who can speak various languages.

Other Southland secondary principals are also reporting increasing school rolls.

This is borne out by the Ministry of Education's provisional rolls for Otago and Southland in 2024, which show a one percent increase. That's the equivalent of 486 children, according to provisional rolls for 2023.

Southland Secondary Principals Association chairman, school principal Peter Wilkinson says he thinks some schools in Southland are at capacity for infrastructure and teaching staff.

Primary school rolls decline

Interestingly, Southland primary schools are seeing a slight decline in enrolment numbers.

One principal says his school saw a peak in enrolments about five years ago.

"In the last two to three years those big increases have been going off to high school ... so there is a slight decline of enrolments."

His roll is sitting at about 400 pupils at the moment and is expected to go down to 350 at the start of next year. This is likely to climb to about 430 by the end of next year.

The fluctuation may be driven by rental accommodation which often leads to transient enrolments as people live in the area for a while and then move on.

Additional ESOL funding needed

One primary principal says he has many international pupils from Columbia and, although they managed English as a Second Language (ESOL), they could always use more funding.

"We're doing all right but that's just through sheer chance and because we've got experienced staff," he says.

Source

• Otago Daily Times

We know very little about the individual, except that he has a strong Christian faith, teaches maths and is a man.

Why was he de-registered?

A student had decided to transition from female to male, and the teacher—because of his beliefs — refused to use their new pronouns or name. We don't know too much about the student.

The Tribunal's decision assumes transitioning in adolescence cannot be easy. Perhaps the teacher might have been more reasonable. The student offered a compromise: Don't worry about the pronouns but use my new name.

Still, the teacher refused, saying he didn't want the student (quoting from the full decision) to "go down the path of sin."

Homosexuality and abortion were invoked as examples of the latter to the Tribunal.

The Tribunal asserts that while you may hold such views privately, expressing them publicly is "disgraceful." Think what you like; guard what you say.

While "sin" may not have been the best response from the teacher, would denying their belief and dishonestly accepting the student's new identity be any more productive?

No matter. Thanks to this ruling, it seems that relativism, the notion that you have your truth and I have mine, is officially dead.

Instead, two rights collide: the right to determine your gender and the right to refuse that determination on the grounds of religious faith. Only one can win, with significant collateral damage.

A commentator has suggested that this decision indicates that the Human Rights Act (which defends good conscience) is increasingly unfit for purpose.

In the same week the Teacher's Council decision became public, the Broadcasting Standards Authority announced it could decline complaints relying on "transphobic tropes," including the view that gender identity was a mechanism to exploit women.

Some arguments are no longer acceptable, even if made honestly.

Do you see a pattern developing?

Teacher de-registration can only occur for serious matters: forming an inappropriate sexual relationship with a student, sharing pornography or alcohol or drugs with them, etc.

Ultimately the Tribunal de-registered the teacher because of the "likelihood" of causing the student emotional harm and bringing the teaching profession into disrepute.

Likely harm was thus made equal to actual harm (sex, porn and drugs). In such an environment, proportion frays.

Let's touch on a case against a teacher who wasn't deregistered. This teacher lied about taking classes, faked grades, forged a Head of Department's signature, and hired a gang member to kneecap her principal. No de-registration.

Given that there's a clear want of balance about what arguments will be refused by the powerful, there's also a risk that this unacceptability virus might infect our politics.

Relativism (which necessarily requires tolerance) means you should listen to what you may think are disgraceful arguments so that you may fillet them. You have the freedom to be critical. That's indispensable for a worthwhile election.

Only, some freedoms are no longer free.

• Tim Wilson is the Executive Director of the Maxim Institute.
• First published by the Maxim Institute. Republished with permission.

The QS 2024 World University Rankings also name nine Australian universities in the global top 100 (up from seven last year).

Nearly all Australian universities rose in the 2024 QS rankings following a methodology change which the company said was the most significant since its rankings began 20 years ago.

New Zealand's top-ranked university is the University of Auckland, ranked 68.

• University of Otago University, Dunedin - ranked 206
• Massey University, Palmerston North - ranked 239
• Victoria University Wellington - ranked 241
• University of Canterbury - Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha - ranked 256.

Sources

• The Australian
• QS World University Rankings

But we are forgetting something that goes beyond talking and demands action - the rangatahi at the heart of our education system.

Our young people have, for the last few years, experienced the unprecedented nature of a pandemic - lockdowns with education being dished out to varying standards via Zoom and Teams.

As adults, we need to acknowledge that we're failing the next generation.

We need to act and reverse the message that being at school just isn't important.

We know there is a strong correlation between attendance and achievement.

We are now in our fourth year of accepting and sending regular messages that days spent at school are not important. A habit that started with Covid, continuing today as the new norm.

Auckland schools once again started the school year with a "please close for a week notice" from the Wellington-based head office.

When it rains, we see schools rapidly put on alert to shut schools and send students home.

And now they're faced with more disruption from strike action and work-to-rule restrictions, as teachers demonstrate frustration with their ministry.

This industrial action, compounded with schools not having the resources to operate sees whole year groups rostered home, and curriculum-based activities and events cancelled.

No wonder rangatahi are not turning up.

No-one is turning up for them.

But more importantly, what are we doing to future-proof education, our workforce, and the productivity base of Aotearoa?

For most of this century, the literacy and numeracy achievement of our young people has been declining.

We continue to have an appalling truancy problem, despite headlines suggesting otherwise.

There has been a lot of commentary around NCEA level of literacy and numeracy among our young people.

NCEA literacy and numeracy test results in a 2021 pilot highlighted a troubling disparity between decile one schools and higher-decile schools in New Zealand.

Decile-one schools had pass rates of just 2% in writing 1 and 30% in numeracy, while higher-decile schools achieved much higher pass rates.

In reading the difference between decile 1 and 10 was 24% to 85%, and in numeracy 10% compared to 78%.

Recent data from the PIRLS study on reading assessments revealed we had dropped from 13th in 2001 to 27th in 2021. Shouldn't we be leading the way not falling backwards?

This is a damning insight into our success to end poverty for generations of today's children.

Education inequalities are embedded in our system.

The root causes have been manifesting for some time: social inequity, poverty, resources, wealth, and power.

We must ensure equal access to quality education for all students regardless of their socio-economic background. Education can lift people out of poverty, but based on all the indicators, things don't look great for New Zealand's future. Continue reading

• John O'Connell is chief executive of Life Education Trust.

The 2021 social profile of the Catholic community in Australia, prepared by the National Centre for Pastoral Research from census data released last year, gives a bird's eye view of Australia's Catholic population.

It also charts how much has changed in the last quarter century. In 1996, Australia's 4.8 million Catholics were 27 per cent of our total population.

In 2011 our population peaked at 5.4 million, before falling to 5.07 million in 2021—only 20 per cent of the country.

The median age has also risen significantly in the same time period, from 33 to 43 years, and the Catholic population is now slightly more female than male, at 53 per cent.

The days of large Catholic families are also behind us, with around 2 per cent of married couples having four or more children, and only 10 per cent with three or more.

The number of people never married has remained stable for the last 25 years, at around 33 per cent, as has the number of single parent families, at around 11 per cent.

But the divorce and separation rate among Catholics has risen from 8.9 percent to 11.7 percent in 2021, ironically higher than the national average of 10.6 per cent.

The number of de facto couples in which at least one person identifies as Catholic has risen from 10.1 to 17.7 per cent since 1996, as has the percentage of couples of mixed religion, from 53 to 58 per cent.

Australia's Catholic population has become much more diverse, with a fifth of all Catholics in Australia born in a non-English-speaking country.

The top five overseas birthplaces for Catholics were the Philippines, Italy, the UK, India and NZ; recent arrivals were most likely to come from Colombia, Iraq, the Philippines, Brazil and Argentina.

One in five Catholics spoke a language other than English at home, and three per cent aren't proficient in English at all.

We are receiving more education than ever before, with the percentage of Catholics with a university education rising from 9.7 to 24.6 per cent in the last 25 years.

Our educational profile is reflected in the prevalence of women in "white collar" management or professional jobs (39 vs 35 per cent of men), while men still fill the bulk of "blue collar" trades jobs (45 vs 12 per cent).

Nearly 21 per cent of all Australian school students attend Catholic schools. Catholic students make up 63 per cent of Catholic primary, and 58.7 per cent of secondary students.

"Knowing the people who make up the Catholic population helps dioceses, parishes and other Catholic ministries better understand and serve their communities," said Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB.

"The statistics in this report confirm what we are seeing in our parish communities - that they are becoming more and more culturally and linguistically diverse.

The census statistics, from which the report was compiled, only measure religious identification and not practice or belief.

In 2021 the Catholic Church was the single largest religious affiliation in Australia, at 20 per cent.

Christianity as a whole fell below 50 per cent for the first time at the 2021 census, and "no religion" rose to a new peak of 38.9 per cent.

• Adam Wesselinoff is Deputy Editor of the Catholic Weekly.
• First published in The Catholic Weekly. Republished with permission.

As prices rise on the supermarket shelves and at the petrol pump, the costs of sending tamariki to school has taken a toll on many families.

In Rotorua, Western Heights Primary School principal Brent Grissin said the bus bought for school trips had now an extra purpose.

"We initially bought the school bus to assist with school trips, but it's become a mean to get kids to and from school. Read more

In some areas principals warned it could take years for children to catch up on what they have missed, while others said achievement was no different from before the pandemic.

Schools visited by RNZ also described effects including poor attendance and more online abuse.

In Porirua East, Tairangi School principal Jason Ataera said it could take years to fix the damage to children's achievement.

"In our community I would say it would be rare for anybody to be at the same level they would have been had the pandemic not happened," he said. Read more

During the same period it resolved 12,726 cases - nearly half of them, because the child in question was found to be already enrolled in another school.

The new cases included 9838 students who were removed from their school's roll and classed as "non-enrolled" after being absent for about 20 days.

The remaining 6933 cases were "unjustified absence", essentially persistent truants.

The number of new non-enrolled cases opened in the first half of 2022 was close to the 10,727 cases opened in all of 2021. Read more

The report, "Beyond Bad Apples: Understanding Clericalism as a Structural Problem & Cultivating Strategies for Change," released Monday (Aug. 15), explores the links between clericalism — clergy's focus on its authority — and clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse.

The study's authors, Julie Hanlon Rubio and Paul J. Schutz, both professors at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit institution in Northern California, initially intended to survey 600 respondents, drawn proportionally from lay, religious (those who take vows but are not ordained to the priesthood) and priests, but were turned away by five of the six dioceses and diocesan seminaries they approached.

The authors admit that this "likely means that our respondents are biased towards an agreement with our theory of clericalism" and that "our data leans in one direction."

Nearly half (48.4%) of the 300 who participated were lay Catholics, 22% were nuns, 16% were priests and 6% were men in formation for the priesthood. More than two-thirds of their responses from priests came from those educated in Jesuit institutions.

The report was funded by a grant from Fordham University as part of a project dubbed "Taking Responsibility: Jesuit Educational Institutions Confront the Causes and Legacy of Sexual Abuse."

Rubio and Schutz wanted to move away from asking, "Is he a good priest or a bad priest?" and ask instead, "What are the underlying reasons that this priest is acting in this way?"

Existing studies, said the authors, "have focused on individuals who engage in abuse due to personal weakness, psychosexual vulnerabilities, the influence of broader historical movements, or poor theology and training."

Schutz told Religion News Service that their aim was to understand how "structural clericalism operates in the church," comparing clericalism to the way structural racism shapes the lives of people of color.

Rubio said, "When you blame ‘bad apples,' then everybody else is sort of innocent, as long as we go after the bad apples. But when you say there's a problem with the structure, that's a much bigger problem, and we're all implicated."

The authors said their data shows that sex, gender and power are all components of structural clericalism, which in turn keeps priests above and apart from the rest of the church and potentially enables abuse.

Nearly half (49%) of priest respondents and 73% of those in formation said that they were told repression or sublimation were strategies for dealing with their sexuality (how one lives as a sexual person), according to the report. This number increases to 83% among non-Jesuit-educated priests.

The report also noted that 70% of those in formation and 51% of priests said it was difficult to talk about their sexuality. More than 75% of all respondents said the church would be a healthier institution if priests spoke openly about their own sexuality.

Half of the priests and those in formation said their formation program gave them the tools they needed for living a celibate life without denying their sexuality.

Of this 50%, all were Jesuit-educated; none were diocesan priests or students in diocesan seminaries.

Large majorities in the study rejected "simple correlations between homosexuality or celibacy and (clergy perpetrated sex abuse)." Only 11 respondents named homosexuality and only four named celibacy as a factor in clergy-perpetrated sex abuse, according to the report.

Among the survey's participants, 40% of priests and men in formation for priesthood identified as homosexual or bisexual, the report found. Officially, the priesthood is limited to heterosexual men.

"The concentration of gay men in the priesthood cannot be overlooked because most priests are not able to be open about their sexual orientation, and some may consciously or unconsciously seek out priesthood as a way of avoiding or repressing their sexuality, making healthy celibacy extraordinarily difficult," the report read.

When pertaining to gender, fewer than half (48%) of participants in the study named patriarchy as a significant factor in clergy sex abuse.

"Very few" participants discussed the role of gender when asked about the relationship among gender, sexuality and sexual abuse in the church, according to the report.

Just over 50% of Jesuit-educated respondents and about 40% of non-Jesuit-educated respondents said that men and women participated equally in their academic classes and were shown equal respect.

About two-thirds at Jesuit schools and a little fewer than 50% at non-Jesuit schools reported equal respect for female professors.

Fewer than 30% said they had encountered gender or sexuality studies in an academic setting.

Clericalism was identified as a looming problem in the report.

Clergy, lay and religious participants discussed "various versions of authoritarian management, all of which are linked by an excessive exercise of positional power."

Others described numerous "disorganized" management styles, with one lay respondent describing her priest's management style as "benign neglect tending toward chaos and toxicity."

Lay people and religious see their priests differently than the priests in the report see themselves.

When asked if they welcome constructive criticism about preaching, 80% of priests and 87% of deacons said they did. However, only 9% of the laypeople and the nuns in the report agreed that clergy are receptive to criticism, while 52% disagreed.

"Lay people are conditioned by structural clericalism to believe that they can't ask the question, they can't approach the father with their concern about the homily, or they can't bring this administrative or budgetary concern before the priest because, you know, he's in charge," Schutz said.

"We've all been conditioned over the course of our lives to see the priest in that way."

Thomas G. Plante, a professor of psychology and religious studies at Santa Clara University, described the report as an "ambitious project," but said that, given the limitations of the people who participated, it's important "not to over generalize."

Data shows that allegations of clerical sex abuse of minors have declined, while "clericalism hasn't changed as much in the 21st century," said Plante, who provided early consultation for the study.

Sex abuse of children and teens, he said, is a "common phenomenon regardless of where men are working."

"When we look at anyone who has power and control … whether they be clerics, school teachers or tutors, you're going to find a fair amount of child sex abuse," he said.

"We have to work hard to minimize that."

Rubio and Schutz hope the report will "contribute to a healthier future for our Church," they wrote.

They take what they call an "anti-clericalism" stance — not anti-priest. "On analogy with anti-racism, anti-clericalism is a moral stance that can be embraced by anyone with a critical awareness of a structural problem," their report said.

Among their recommendations, the authors said the church should provide spaces for open discussions of sex and sexuality. Including women in seminary classrooms and on seminary faculties and the study of feminist perspectives on the Catholic faith may also be "necessary to disrupt environments of male dominance and the perpetuation of male power."

Lay people and religious should also be able to contribute their experience to church life.

"Leveling the playing field in ecclesial life," the report said, "is a part of constructing safer environments where sexual abuse will be less likely to occur."

• Alejandra Molina is a National Reporter covering Latinos and religion in the West Coast. She is based in Los Angeles.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Students are leaving school without qualifications, says Kevin Shore, Catholic Education Office CEO.

Catholic school principals tell him of former pupils working instead of coming to school. They're helping with stressed family finances.

Others are losing motivation.

He says absence and interruptions are draining their confidence and for some, NCEA success seems out of reach.

Shore says staff are stressed and the last three years have required a huge amount of resilience.

He says Catholic principals and teaching staff are making every effort to limit the negative learning impacts on students.

With sick leave among New Zealand's teaching staff up by 80 per cent some educational experts seem dismissive when they describe Covid as an "occupational risk" for teachers on the front line.

Long Covid's not being taken seriously enough, teachers say. Yet its symptoms accompany one in 10 infections.

One teacher speaks of "brain fog, fatigue and breathlessness". Another can't walk downstairs. Her lung capacity is poor.

Others report memory problems.

One says he needed reminding how to get to classrooms and when school finishes!

Getting relievers isn't much of a solution.

Principals say Covid is making it "impossible" to find relief teachers.

There are fewer than 8,500 relief teachers in New Zealand - the lowest number for 17 years.

In two years, more than 1,200 have left and have not been replaced causing some schools to roster students home and move to online learning.

Liam Rutherford of NZEI Te Riu Roa says relief teachers need more support.

"In the pandemic, people want access to more secure work and relieving is the opposite of that," he says.

"With no work during lockdowns or over holidays people have no job security. There isn't anything holding them into the sector.

"Covid only emphasises the long-standing issue of insecurity in relief work.

"They need a wider teaching career pathway, with access to professional development."

Rutherford is calling for an in-depth review of the relief teaching workforce.

Sources

• Supplied
• Stuff
• NZ Herald

St Ignatius of Loyola College, a year 7-13 coeducational school, will open in Term 1, 2024, with a maximum of 340 Year 7-9 students. The roll will grow to 900 Year 7 to 13 students by 2030.

Currently the principal at Marcellin College, Wearmouth will take up his new role on day 1 of Term 4, 2022. Continue reading

Prior to the pandemic, girls' enrollments in school had seen significant improvements in Asia. But with the pandemic, those gains have been wiped out.

UNESCO estimates that about 24 million learners, from pre-primary to university level, are at risk of not returning to school following the education disruption.

Almost half of them are found in South and West Asia besides Africa.

Asia was doing well prior to the pandemic, having brought down the number of girls out of school from 30 million to 15 million in the last two decades.

Almost all Asian countries with the exception of Pakistan and Timor-Leste had fared well by sending girls to schools.

In fact, with more girls in schools, Asia had posted decreasing trends in child marriage prior to the pandemic.

With the pandemic playing spoilsport, it will be difficult to sustain the tempo.

With an estimated 200,000 more girls experiencing child marriage in South Asia in 2020, the figures are expected to skyrocket as the ordeal from the pandemic is still lingering in many Asian nations.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is mulling raising the marriage age from 18 to 21 for girls, but the move has proved difficult to implement in a country of 1.3 billion people.

A parliamentary panel report, which focused on the empowerment of women through education, observed the probability of more adolescent girls opting out of school permanently is high.

The report said that girls away from school will end up doing household tasks and providing childcare due to the economic hardships of their families.

Though the panel has recommended targeted scholarships, conditional cash transfers, provision of bicycles, access to smartphones and hostel facilities to woo girls back to school, going by India's track record in looking after the welfare of its marginalized, these sops may remain only on paper.

In Vietnam, the legal age to wed is 18, but UNICEF said one in 10 girls is married before that age. Tying the nuptial knot early is mainly prevalent among ethnic groups in the communist country.

Asia is known for its migrant workers.

But the pandemic caused job losses and many are stuck at home.

When family members are hit by Covid-19, the onus of looking after patients falls on girls. So at home, care responsibilities have dramatically increased for girls who were forced to skip classes due to their ethnic minority status.

The cost of school fees was identified as a major barrier to girls' education in Asia.

With a bleak economic future awaiting their parents combined with existing attitudes that devalue girls' education, more girls are being taken out of school forever in Asia.

University students are most affected due to the tuition costs related to their studies.

Pre-primary education comes next.

While Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and to a greater extent India are on track to achieve gender parity in primary education, Pakistan and Afghanistan are woefully lagging.

Those girls who will be spared the tyranny of early motherhood have already assumed the new role of child labourers.

These young hands are going to do more harm than good to the existing labour market in Asia which is facing the problem of plenty as the pandemic rendered many migrant workers jobless.

This excess supply of girl labourers will further reduce the bargaining power of men and women working in unorganized sectors such as construction and garment-making.

At home, these girls become an easy target for family violence.

Heightened calls to helplines were reported in Singapore, Malaysia and India after the pandemic hit.

In Vietnam, domestic violence has doubled since Covid-related measures were introduced.

Education was the last resort for many Asian girls to lead a respectable and meaningful life.

What they need is a compassionate treatment to help them wade through the new normal.

The tiny Catholic Church in Asia, which claims to have pioneered modern education in most Asian nations, could play a vital role to change the fate of Asian girls and society itself.

But that can happen only if the hierarchy becomes aware of the challenges to the mission.

• Ben Joseph is a journalist of more than two decades of experience. Ben worked with leading publications like the New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, Business Standard, Times of India and Muscat Daily. He writes about Asian politics and human rights issues.
• First published in UCANews. Republished with permission.

A slew of articles over the past year depict a generation of men who feel lost, detached and lacking in male role models.

This sense of despair is especially acute among working-class men, fewer than one in five of whom completes college.

Yet one group is defying the odds: boys from working-class families who grow up religious.

As a sociologist of education and religion, I followed the lives of 3,290 teenagers from 2003 to 2012 using survey and interview data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, and then linking those data to the National Student Clearinghouse in 2016.

I studied the relationship between teenagers' religious upbringing and its influence on their education: their school grades, which colleges they attend and how much higher education they complete.

My research focused on Christian denominations because they are the most prevalent in the United States.

I found that what religion offers teenagers varies by social class.

Those raised by professional-class parents, for example, do not experience much in the way of an educational advantage from being religious.

In some ways, religion even constrains teenagers' educational opportunities (especially girls') by shaping their academic ambitions after graduation; they are less likely to consider a selective college as they prioritize life goals such as parenthood, altruism and service to God rather than a prestigious career.

However, teenage boys from working-class families, regardless of race, who were regularly involved in their church and strongly believed in God were twice as likely to earn bachelor's degrees as moderately religious or nonreligious boys.

Religious boys are not any smarter, so why are they doing better in school?

The answer lies in how religious belief and religious involvement can buffer working-class Americans — males in particular — from despair.

Many in the American intelligentsia — the elite-university-educated population who constitute the professional and managerial class — do not hold the institution of religion in high regard.

When these elites criticize religion, they often do so on the grounds that faith (in their eyes) is irrational and not evidence-based.

But one can agree with the liberal critique of conservatism's moral and political goals while still acknowledging that religion orders the lives of millions of Americans — and that it might offer social benefits.

A boy I'll call John (all names have been changed to protect participants' privacy under ethical research guidelines) was a typical example of the kind of working-class teenager I've been studying.

He lived an hour outside Jackson, Miss.

His father owned an auto-repair shop and his mother worked as a bookkeeper and substitute teacher.

His days were filled with playing football, fishing and hunting with his grandparents, riding four-wheelers with friends and mowing the occasional lawn to earn pocket money.

John aspired to attend college, but given his parents' occupations, income (the equivalent of $53,000 today) and education (both had earned vocational certificates), the odds were not in his favour.

Still, he reached a milestone that has become largely out of reach for young men like him: He earned his associate degree. And his faith and involvement in church played a large part in that.

Children with college-educated parents have many advantages that make their academic trajectories easier.

They tend to live in neighbourhoods with a strong social infrastructure, including safe outdoor spaces.

They have more familial and geographic stability, which means they rarely need to transfer between schools, disrupting their educations and severing social ties.

Children from wealthier families also benefit from a network of connections and opportunities that many poorer children lack.

College-educated parents tend to work in professional organizations and have robust social networks from college where they meet other members of the professional class.

All these social ties — from the neighbourhood, the workplace, and college — provide a web of support for upper-middle-class families, which sociologists refer to as "social capital."

But working-class families like John's do not have the same opportunities to develop social capital.

The workplace used to be a central social institution for working-class families, but in the gig economy, it is nearly impossible to feel a sense of stability, acquire health insurance or develop relationships with colleagues.

The lack of social capital — along with systemic problems and inequities — has contributed to the unravelling of the lives of millions of working-class Americans, especially men.

Since the early 2000s, just as the kids in my study were entering adolescence, there has been a drastic rise in the number of working-class men dying "deaths of despair" from opioids, alcohol poisoning and suicide.

But despair doesn't die: It gets transmitted to children.

It gets transmitted to children. Most of the working-class kids in my study — especially boys — seemed to look out in the world and feel despair physically, cognitively and emotionally.

I found that most of the working-class boys in the study had dropped out of the educational system by their mid-20s and seemed on track to repeat the cycle of despair.

But not John. Continue reading

• Ilana M. Horwitz is an assistant professor of Jewish studies and sociology at Tulane University and the author of "God, Grades, and Graduation."

On the list are those who work or volunteer in an organisation in the same campus or building as a school or early learning service. Churches and cafes are cited as examples.

Staff at churches sharing a building or campus with a school must be vaccinated if they will be there at the same time as students.

Church leaders who have so far refused the jabs - like Brian Tamaki and Peter Mortlock - could face being barred from their own church grounds during school hours.

They include City Impact Church's Pastor Peter Mortlock and Destiny Church leader Bishop Brian Tamaki - who is facing charges over recent protests against lockdowns and Covid jab requirements.

The vaccine mandate is intended to prevent or slow the spread of Covid within schools.

Vaccinated staff are much less likely to catch or get sick from Covid. They are therefore less likely to spread it to each other or to students.

Although children rarely become seriously ill from the virus, and those who suffer from respiratory illness are at higher risk.

Children can also spread the virus to unvaccinated or vulnerable family members.

Several thousand people within the education system are resisting the mandate, which insists:

Schools have a staff vaccine register by November 9
After November 15 people who have not had their first dose won't be allowed on site.

Churches have exactly the same mandate.

While most churches actively support vaccination, some prominent church leaders have come out against the mandates.

Brian Tamaki, the Destiny Church leader, has a private school within its church complex in Wiri.

Peter Mortlock's City Impact runs several childcare services at church sites. It also has a school on site at its Albany branch.

Mortlock says whether he is vaccinated or not is a private matter.

He says City Impact is "working through all these new and ever-shifting 'rules', just as everyone is".

There was a lot of detail yet to be released and questions to be answered for clarity, he says.

"We obviously want to work within the regulations and are working with all our staff and facilities to do so.

"As you know this is a very stressful time for a lot of people, students included, and we will be ensuring everyone's safety."

Tamaki posted to Facebook on August 18 saying he and his wife Hannah Tamaki had chosen not to be vaccinated "at this time".

Asked for a response to the mandate affecting church staff, Destiny Church spokeswoman Anne Williamson says the church has no comment at this stage.

Many churches have been actively encouraging their congregations to get vaccinated. Some have transported parishioners to vaccination centres and encouraged vaccinations from the pulpit.

A positive spin on community vaccination is the new traffic light system will give religious groups with vaccination certificates freedom to gather in larger numbers.

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• NZ Herald
• Image: The New York Times

Education is awash with debates and dichotomies. Should schooling be about knowledge or personal discovery?

Should teachers provide motivation for learning or nurture it intrinsically?

Should schools provide freedom now or preparation for freedom as an adult?

For most teachers and parents, answers lie somewhere in the middle.

As Education Minister Chris Hipkins said: Education is a broad church. It's a wide spectrum with traditionalists at the one end and progressives at the other, all of whom believe their formula works best. The key to the changes we're making is to work hard to capture the best of each world view and bring the whole spectrum along.

Few could disagree.

Progress calls for solutions, not endless battles between extremes.

However, Hipkins' statement overlooks that official policy and ‘research' in New Zealand is far from ordinary.

Over the past few decades, the national curriculum and assessment have turned the school system into an experiment in child-centred orthodoxy.

The philosophy has changed everything from what is taught to the teacher's role in the classroom. It has transformed the purpose of school.

By appealing to the inarguable idea that children should be at the centre of decisions about their learning, children-centred orthodoxy has undermined subject knowledge.

It has told teachers they are at their most professional when they let their students lead.

Consequently, educational standards have plummeted. Despite a 32% real rise in per-pupil spending since 2001, students have gone from world-leading to decidedly average.

In reading, maths and science students now perform far worse than the previous generation just eighteen years ago. In all three subjects, 15-year-olds have lost the equivalent of between three and six terms' worth of schooling. Far fewer pupils today perform at the highest levels. Far more lack the most basic proficiency.

Worse, in the latest round of OECD testing, New Zealand recorded the strongest relationship between socioeconomic background and educational performance of all its comparator English-speaking countries.

Yet, without these international metrics, there would be no way to see this systemic failure. In fact, so strong is the grip of child-centred orthodoxy that the data from the national assessment, NCEA, shows the opposite. Continue reading