The Wire

Every week, a group of high school pupils come together for their one-hour scripture classes, while the remaining others either wait outside the Principal’s office or perhaps engage in private study in the library. But that’s unfair, according to the Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of NSW. The federation has put-up a proposal to the State Government to provide ethics and values classes to students whose parents are atheists, agnostics or at least non-Christian. A few years back, the St James Ethics Centre came up with a similar idea. But the concept was rejected by the State Government, claiming that a values framework was already embedded in school curricula. The federation’s Sharon Canty discussed the issue.