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What the government says
Self-managing schools the issue
The government is introducing a concept called "self-managing schools". What this means is that any and almost all decisions regarding curriculum and other activities are the responsibility of individual schools and their school councils. Yet the government has not thought this through and makes no attempt to enforce its own legislation or guidelines when principals choose to ignore it.
Specialised curriculum at the local level
In September 2006 the Victorian government released guidelines for the introduction of specialised programs into government schools.
Up to this point, the departmental policy was that schools should only undertake specialised approaches to curriculum in relation to existing benchmarks. (See the Executive Memorandum 2000.) Schools that implemented alternative streams did so without government approval. (See the document in relation to Footscray City Primary School.)
At no point has the government released any research or
undertaken any independent study to show that its original report on Footscray City Primary School has been superseded.
They have simply released the guidelines, with no reports on the success or otherwise of these programs existing in Victorian public schools, of which there are over a dozen at this time.
The Executive Memorandum released along with the guidelines makes clear that schools with existing specialised programs must comply with the government guidelines. Yet the government has made no announcement that schools offering these alternative programs should start to comply. Parents in schools across Victoria are seriously concerned about the impact that
these specialised programs are having on the state school program and want the government to undertake investigations of each one.
Other activities at the local level
A (brave) teacher has recently spoken out about the principal's decision at Lynall Hall Community School in Richmond in Victoria to allow the Assemblies of God to conduct extra-curricular activities within school grounds and school hours. PFSE is opposed to these "events" taking place at all in any government school and urges the Victorian Minister for Education and the Department of Education to release a statement supporting and enforcing secularity within our state schools.
Government is contradictory
In the meantime, the government continues to release statements concerning schools offering alternative programs that are
contradictory at best. The Minister stated, on 7 September, when contacted by ABC radio, that "it was up to individual schools".
At the request of the Castlemaine Secondary College School Council, an audit was undertaken of the Steiner program. See the results of the audit here. In this document, the reviewer states that the issue of secularity should not be left up to the local level, but is a decision to be made at the departmental level.
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