"NO OBJECTION"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1941, Page 8

"NO OBJECTION"

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—The Bible-in-Schools League, in a statement published in "The Post" on Monday, makes two declarations that demand the serious consideration of the Minister of Education and of all educational authorities. First, the league says there is "no objection" to the practice of "reducing the time for compulsory secular .education" in order to provide for "the weekly half-hour of religious instruction" in State primary schools. The Minister and boards and committees must declare that the school is either "in" or "out" during that halfhour. It can't be both. In spite of the Jacob-like-, expedient now in. practice, these schools are definitely and officially "in" at 9 a.m. and during the half-hour of religious instruction. The teachers are on duty at nine and all scholars must be in at nine, and any pupils exempted from religious instruction are given ordinary lessons by the teachers. If school is not in on one day till 9.30 a.m. teachers and scholars need not be present till 9.30, and if they are compelled to be there at nine, the time of "compulsory instruction" must, contrary to the Act, include the half-hour of religious instruction. The second point stated by the league is that "all teachers are free to participate" in the religious instruction. How "free" would be the sole, teacher of a country school or the two or three teachers of a small school if he, she, or they exercised this "voluntary" privilege in a school where previously the teacher or teachers had taken part in or had been solely in charge of the "religious instruction"? What would be the position of those teachers, not in theory, but in actual practice? The Minister, boards, and committees should face squarely up to this matter and not shuffle round it or just let it slide. Teachers' associations should study particularly the, second point. Unless definite declaration is given there will be serious trouble in the future.—l am. etc.. HONESTY.