When SRI does resume next term, there will be fewer than half the number of teachers than there were last year.

The Department of Education and Training advised authorised provider Access Ministries last November that all SRI volunteers would need to submit to a reaccreditation process involving two full days of training, an interview, a pastor’s reference and a working with children check.

“For many of these volunteers with many years of experience behind them, this has proved a bridge too far,” said Richard Kolega, who oversees administrative support for SRI at Access Ministries.

With applications for reaccreditation to be submitted by March 6, the department is due to issue approvals on March 21, which is the last week of term. “So effectively there’ll be no SRI in Victoria in term 1,” he said. “And we won’t have an idea of how many volunteers we will have until that approval list is complete.”

It is known, though, that numbers have already fallen dramatically from about 2,500 last year to as few as 1,000 this year. While these teachers will be well-trained and well-equipped, they will not be able to cover the 700-plus Victorian public schools that offered SRI last year.

Mr Kolega said he would not have a definitive idea of how many schools would continue or how many programs they would run until late March or early April. However, it was certain that some schools would drop SRI while others would continue at a reduced capacity, offering it only across some year levels.

An added difficulty was the confusion about controversial amendments to SRI rules introduced last May, which the government rolled back in October in response to a community campaign.

“Due to those restrictions we had schools where the principals were not supportive and viewed those restrictions as an opportunity to pull out of the program,” Mr Kolega said.

Although the revised regulations were friendlier to SRI, many schools are unaware of the reversal and are still trying to comply with the former policy.

“We are prevented from contacting schools and being seen to interpret department policy, so we’ve got schools still trying to operate under the old regime,” he said. “It was a very difficult year last year.”

Meanwhile in NSW, the independent review of Special Religious Education (SRE) and Special Education in Ethics (SEE) has begun. It will focus on the quality of the curriculum and assess how confident we can be that teachers are teaching the set curriculum.

Dr Bryan Cowling, Executive Director of the Anglican Education Commission and one of the key players in the Parliamentary Inquiry into SRE/SEE in 2012, says that Christians need not be afraid of the outcomes of the review. “We should be grateful for the feedback and prepared to take whatever action is needed to remedy it.

“The heart of the question is whether it’s a right or a privilege to teach SRE in schools,” said Dr Cowling. “In a secular society it is a privilege. If we do it well, people will be happy to have it there. If we do it poorly, then we need to remedy that. If we can’t remedy it then we ought to withdraw because it’s not a good witness to the gospel.”

Robert Ward, General Manager, Communications and Development, at Access Ministries, believes the tightened-up SRI regime in Victoria is a positive for teaching Christianity in an age where children are more interactive and inquiring. “It made us wake up a bit,” he said.

“The department has raised the bar and we have to comply in terms of the training required and material offered,” he said. “What we’re doing is to ensure every instructor that does continue – and we have quite a few new ones – is well trained, well equipped and familiar with all the requirements to ensure children get the best experience of SRI.”

Mr Ward said that the reality was many SRI teachers were ageing and many saw the increased commitment to ongoing training as a sign it was time to stop.

But he said the qualifications of the new instructors were “fantastic”, with two- thirds having a university qualification and half being qualified teachers. “So the complaint that they are all bored housewives is nonsense.”

He also welcomed the need for departmental approval of SRI material, saying it would ensure it complied with the government’s policies and procedures and “that we get the best possible material that interacts with the kids”.

He said there would be all new SRI material from next year, which had to be submitted to the department by the middle of this year.

Image: Kathy Cassidy on Flickr, used under CC License.