THE way Victoria offered religious education was ''not on'', the Christian curriculum was ''crap'' and the education department was ill equipped to stand up to religious ''bullies'', according to Melbourne priest and academic Professor Gary Bouma.

And former High Court judge Michael Kirby said secular ethics classes should be offered to children who do not want to do religious education.

The Sunday Age reported last weekend that the education department was forcing individual schools to offer religious education, even if they were unwilling. About 96 per cent of ''special religious education'' offered in Victoria is by Christian volunteers.

But Professor Bouma, a sociologist at Monash University and the UNESCO chairman of Interreligious and Intercultural Relations, as well as an Anglican priest at Saint John's church, East Malvern, said students should be taught about all religions. If children were being taught in a particular religion, all faiths should be offered, and parents should have to consciously opt in, he said. ''So if there are three Baha'i people who want it in school X, then they should be able to get it,'' said Professor Bouma, a co-author of the recent Human Rights Commission report, Freedom of Religion and Belief in 21st Century Australia.

Professor Bouma described the Christian curriculum developed by Access Ministries as ''just appalling''. ''Now, unfortunately, most of the Christians out there trying to train the next generation are putting them off with the kind of crap they serve,'' he said.

Justice Kirby, also an Anglican, said he was happy with the ''opt out'' model of religious education, but said that an ''appropriate modern compromise'' was to offer a secular ethics class during the period, as was the situation in New South Wales.

''One just has to look around at the ignorance and prejudice concerning homosexuals and women to see what damage can be done by some narrow religious instructions. There have to be viable alternatives which parents and students can consider and opt for.''