Attention Parents: "OPT-OUT" is a myth. Click here to view and download your rights
If you have not provided a religion on your child's enrolment form (over 80% of Qld parents), by law, your child must not be placed in religious instruction without your signed authority. Your child must be placed in a separate location during religious instruction. Also, by law, Religious Instruction is strictly prohibited for all children in Prep year.
Please report any abuse of the Education Act to spel@secularpubliceducation.com
If you have enrolled, or intend enrolling children in the Queensland State education system, you will have completed, or will complete a standard Education Queensland enrolment form. It is important to note that use of the standard Education Queensland enrolment form without any alteration is mandatory. Reject and refuse to complete any enrolment forms which have been 'customised' in any way, including the omission of 'response optional'.
Within the document, a space is provided to optionally supply a 'religion'. If you are among the over 80% of parents who leave this space blank, or intend to do so, your child must not be placed in 'volunteer' conducted Christian Religious Instruction (RI) without your signed authorisation. Your child must be 'opted-in. There are no 'ifs' or 'buts'. It's the law. These circumstances also apply if you have nominated a non-Christian faith, or a broadly descriptive term such as 'philosophical' or 'spiritual' etc.
Also, do not be fooled by the spurious, stealthy, intentional misnaming of Religious Instruction as 'RE', or Religious Education. Religious education does not exist within the Queensland Education system. It never has. The referendum of 1910 ratified only religious instruction by ordained Christian ministers of religion to members of their own denominations (and only to members of their own denominations). Since 1910, successive Queensland Education Acts have referred only to 'Religious Instruction'.
Should staff at your school insist there is 'no difference' between the terms 'RI' and 'RE', ask that they test their theory by promoting 'sex education' as 'sex instruction'.
You should also be aware that under the Education Act, Religious Instruction is forbidden in Prep year. There are no exceptions. We are aware of numerous Queensland State schools illegally conducting Christian Religious Instruction in Prep. Please immediately report any instances of this to BITA central.
Should you encounter any difficulty in having your child immediately removed from Christian Religious Instruction and placed, as the law states, in a 'separate location' where he or she can receive 'other instruction', please contact us.
Chaplaincy
The word ‘chaplain’ or any reference to ‘chaplaincy’ does not appear anywhere within Queensland Education law. However, state school chaplaincy is inextricably intertwined with 1910 legislated Religious Instruction (RI).
This includes all chaplaincy arrangements throughout Queensland funded by the National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP).
Procrastination by the State
The 1989 Education Act provided the legal basis for the appointment of Chaplains in Queensland state schools. In this Act, school chaplaincy was permitted as an approved religious activity that takes place in a state school. The Education (General Provisions) Act, 1989, section 30, and its accompanying regulations (Part IV), made provisions for RE [sic] in terms of “right of entry” instruction by denominational representatives, selected Bible lessons by class teachers in primary and special schools, and alternative instruction for students withdrawn from these activities. These provisions were, in essence, the same as in the State Education Acts (Amendment Act) of 1910. The Department of Education Manual outlined policy and procedures for the implementation of the 1989 provisions as well as “other activities related to religion that may take place in state schools”. These other activities included school chaplaincy.
Salecich, J., 2001. Chaplaincy in Queensland State Schools: An Investigation.
Thesis, (PHD). University of Queensland
"Secular" was deleted
from the Queensland Education Act in 1910.
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