The Uniting Church of Tasmania and Victoria has called on ACCESS Ministries, the authorised provider of SRI in Victoria, to collaborate more closely with its supporting churches and provide a “broader theological basis” for education materials for SRI in Victoria’s state schools.

The demands come at a time when Special Religious Instruction in Victoria’s state schools is under a spotlight, with expressions of community concern about the program adding increasing pressure to ACCESS Ministries to change its ways.

The Uniting Church is the equal largest contributor of funds to ACCESS Ministries from its 12 supporting churches. In 2013, UCA contributed $40,000 of an estimated $120,000 that ACCESS receives from its supporting churches (of a total budget of over $1 million). ACCESS estimates that 10-12 per cent of its 2,500-strong SRI instructors are from the Uniting Church.

General Secretary of the Uniting Church of Tasmania and Victoria, Rev. Dr Mark Lawrence says UCA has been looking at the direction and interaction with ACCESS Ministries for the last three years.

He says the church’s primary concern is that supporting churches are not able to contribute to the development of teaching materials for SRI.

“We believe that the fact that they’re calling us a ‘supporting church’ means [we] should be able to engage with ACCESS in the development of those teaching materials.”

Another concern of UCA is the theological breadth of those materials. UCA’s task group report “indicate that ACCESS Ministries has tended to move towards…a more fundamentalist approach to theology, and also a theological position which might deny the value and expression of any other faith perspectives,” said Rev. Lawrence.

He says UCA wants ACCESS to go through “constitutional change” to allow the capacity to be able to “contribute to the development of theological breadth in teaching material content” and for ACCESS to undertake a more proactive and broad-ranging recruitment process for those who write the teaching materials.

While Rev. Lawrence said he expects the relationship with ACCESS to continue, the Uniting Church is looking at ways to contribute more to the incorporation of General Religious Education (GRE) into the Australian Curriculum. It said it had no intention of moving into the SRI space, should negotiations with ACCESS be unsuccessful, but rather would increase its GRE focus.

“It’s very important for [children] to have an understanding of the range of faith traditions in Australia…and for the tenets of Christianity to be set alongside those others.”

But Rev. Lawrence said reports from the Uniting Church board members on the ACCESS council indicate “positive changes” were already being made by ACCESS since August. ACCESS has had a leadership change around this time, as CEO Evonne Paddison stepped down and was replaced by acting CEO Dawn Penney.

“In my view and the communications we’ve received thus far from ACCESS, the expressions of openness and the desire to work in a collaborative fashion are all positive, and speak well into the five requests that UCA is making,” he said.

“We are keen to stay in a positive relationship with ACCESS Ministries, and expect that as we work through the five points in the resolution together, we would be able to do so.”

ACCESS Ministries acting CEO Dawn Penney says the organisation has been involved in the review process undertaken by UCA and is “confident that there is a clear way forward, one that does not compromise the commonly understood elements of the Christian faith.”

ACCESS says it is open to “creative ideas and solutions” put forward by its supporting churches to improve training, curriculum development and the financial sustainability of the SRI program.