South Australia, ACT reject Federal Government's offer to fund $250m school chaplaincy program

Updated

South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory have rejected the Federal Government's offer to fund a school chaplaincy program worth nearly $250 million, after non-religious counsellors were excluded from the scheme.

Across the nation 580 of the 2,300 school counsellors working for the chaplaincy program are not religious and will not be funded next year.

At Canberra's Dickson College, the school has a secular counsellor.

The school's principal, Kerrie Heath, said the most qualified person for the chaplaincy position was not religious so they chose him.

"Our community really was committed to finding the person who was absolutely the best fit for our school and so we ended up with someone who is not a chaplain but is a youth worker at our school," she said.

ACT Education Minister Joy Burch said all schools should have the option of choosing both religious and secular welfare staff.

"I think there is the potential for 24 counsellors to lose their positions at the end of this year, and that just denies support to our students and denies the right to choose what is the best for them," she said.

The school chaplains program was introduced by the Howard Government in 2006.

The program was challenged in the High Court twice and found to be invalid because the scheme went outside the Federal Government's funding powers.

Now the funding will be given via state and territory governments.

In 2011 the Gillard government changed the school chaplaincy program, giving schools the option of having secular chaplains.

The Abbott Government said the chaplains would not be allowed to proselytise and must respect other people's views.

Islamic counsellors could reduce risk of radicalisation: AMWA

The new funding arrangement is not just for Christian chaplains - other faiths are also included.

Silma Ihram from the Australian Muslim Women's Association said that having Islamic counsellors in schools in disadvantaged areas would help reduce the risk of young people becoming radicalised.

"It certainly will help because we know those people who have been highlighted in the media as either travelling to Syria or being involved in pro-ISIS [Islamic State] sentiment, a lot of them have major issues with their mental health," she said.

"Whether because of family breakdown or other problems, that's why most people end up in prison, because issues [happened] to them when they were younger and they were not treated.

"They are disaffected, angry young men so the earlier we can address this the better."

But Ms Ihram said that not all Islamic preachers are not suited to the role.

"Unfortunately a lot of our Imams have religious knowledge but they have very little knowledge of the Australian environment," she said.

"We are looking at a proposal to organise an appropriate qualification which understands the complete gamut of understanding Australian history and counselling skills and women's issues."

Topics: community-and-society, religion-and-beliefs, schools, public-schools, government-and-politics, federal-government, act, sa, australia

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