Christian Education Council Welcomes Bill

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29984, 20 November 1962, Page 12

Christian Education Council Welcomes Bill

(New Zealand Press /Association)

WELLINGTON, Nov. 19. The Rev. K. J. Mackie, general secretary of the New Zealand Council for Christian Education, in a supplied statement, said today that the council, representing the nine major non-Roman Catholic churches in New Zealand, welcomed the bill recently introduced by the Minister of Education into the House of Representatives. “This is, the first major step taken by the Minister to give effect to the recommendations of the recent Commission on Education, and the Minister is to be congratulated on the step he has taken,” he said. “Of particular importance in the proposed bill is the section which gives the State school teacher the right to give religious instruction and to take part in religious observances. The New Zealand council for Christian education has always felt that school teachers should not be denied this right, and the present clause contains a safeguard against any pressure or discrimination of the schoolteacher, who is willing to give religious instruction, by stating explicitly that the school committee must approve of the teacher participating. This seems a very wise precaution and one which the Council for Christian Education endorses,” said Mr Mackie. “We would desire that the 30 minutes a class a week should be set apart for religious instruction and that religious observances be also permitted,” said Mr Mackie. In many New Zealand primary schools, especially in the South Island, the school day is opened with a short act of worship, usually a Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer, and its seems a retrograde step to insist that this very commendable practice should be an alternative to religious instruction within the 30minute period. “We would hope, further, that the conscientious rights of parents and guardians

would be respected by allowing them to contract ’out' rather than ‘in.’

“On le whole, the proposed legislation follows the spirit of the recommendations of the Commission on Education and gives effect to a more liberal interpretation of the word ‘secular’ as applied to the national education system of the country.

“For many years the Nelson system of religious instruction has been part of the educational scene, and when this legislation is passed and written into the Statute Book, any doubts as to the legality of religious instruction will I : removed,” said Mr Mackie.