Schools beat prayer bans by shutting doors
Published: August 25, 2006
Some Manawatu secular primary schools are delaying starting times so they can teach religious education to get around Ministry of Education guidelines.
Updated guidelines state religious education is to be taught at lunchtime or after school.
Riverdale and Whakarongo schools start school half an hour late on Fridays so they can hold unofficial religious classes from 9am.
Updated guidelines from the ministry, issued this week, warn schools they may be breaking the law if they say prayers at assemblies which all pupils are expected to attend, or sing Christmas carols, considered a religious observance.
Whakarongo School principal Jaco Broodryk said the school was “technically” shut when classes were held on a Friday morning.
“It will be a sad day when schools can’t sing Christmas carols or have a karakia,” he said. “I think the ministry needs to focus on what’s important. It’s a bit over the top.”
Schools relied on flexibility and freedom to run, he said, and it was governed by what the community wanted the school to teach children.
More than 95 per cent of children participate in the weekly religious instruction sessions.
Religious education was based on Christian stories and values, Mr Broodryk said.
Six Manawatu secular primary schools spoken to by The Manawatu Standard said most parents opted for religious education for their children.
Half an hour a week is set aside, either in school or out of school time.
“It’s pretty low key,” Hokowhitu School principal Allan Alach said, “but a tricky area to manage.”
In other guidelines, karakia in kura kaupapa, Maori immersion units or mainstream schools could also be illegal if they were overtly religious rather than “spiritual” in the context of Maori culture.
Information about the new guidelines will be sent to schools in the next two months. The guidelines say if religious instruction is held in normal hours, parents will have to opt in and be given advance warning. Written consent will be required.
Children who stay out will have to be offered educationally valuable alternatives.
The ministry planned to advise that religious instruction or events should be held on the basis that parents who wanted their children to attend should have to “opt in”, rather than opt out, which might humiliate students who didn’t want to take part, senior ministry manager Martin Connelly said.
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