ATTENTION PARENTS
'OPT OUT' is a myth! click here to view/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
In the 1860s, the settlement of Moreton Bay ceased being a part of New South Wales and moved to become a new State, Queensland.
This required a whole new system of government to be established, including the creation of a new public school system, freed from the embrace of the Christian churches.
In 1875, the first Queensland Education Act was created, providing for free, compulsory and secular public education.
The Queensland schools were truly secular, not allowing any religious materials onto the school grounds at all, and requiring the school teacher to teach only secular material.
Queensland enjoyed the best secular public school system in Australia.
Faith schools continued to operate, but Christians from the Bible Society were not satisfied and insisted they should be able to impose their religious views and dogma on public school students during school time.
In 1910, the Queensland Government held a referendum to ask selected electors, because the electoral franchise did not extend then as far is it does today, whether Religious Instruction, to be given by the local priest, vicar or pastor, and Bible lessons, to be given by the government school teacher, should be introduced to public schools.
The Roman Catholic church leaders opposed the referendum, but it was won by a small margin.
The 1910 referendum YES/NO question was worded:
Are you in favour of introducing the following system into State Schools, namely:
The State Schoolmaster, in school hours, teaches selected Bible lessons from a reading book provided for the purpose, but is not allowed to give sectarian teaching:
Any minister of religion is entitled, in school hours, to give the children of his own denomination an hour's religious instruction on such day or days as the school committee can arrange for:
Any parent is entitled to withdraw his child from all religious teaching if he chooses to do so?
YES
NO
The results were.. Yes: 74,228. No: 56,681. Informal: 7,651. Wording reflecting the above outcome, including the reading of 'selected Bible lessons' by teachers, remains in the Queensland Education (General Provisions) Act and Regulation to this day.
Since 1910, or for the last one hundred years, Queensland public schools have not been secular. This is because in the same year, in order to allow State school teachers to teach selected Bible lessons within Queensland public schools as per the 1910 referendum outcome, the 1875 Education Act was amended, and every mention of the word secular was deleted.
For the same purpose, a vital clause was also deleted from the 1875 Queensland Education Act:
The removal of this critical section means that in 2010, Queensland Government staff school teachers are permitted to inject Christian dogma including creationism into any lessons of any subjict, at any time and at any level from Preparatory year upward.
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