AUSTRALIAN
COUNCIL
FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT
SCHOOLS - D.O.G.S.
PRESS RELEASE 300.
15 July
2009
SOCIAL COHESION: INTEGRATION
NOT SEGREGATION
PUBLIC SCHOOL UNION PRESIDENT
CORRECT
PRIVATE SCHOOL UNION SECRETARY
MISTAKEN
DOGS support Public Schools because they integrate
students
From its foundation in the 1960's DOGS has promoted social
cohesion through the integration as opposed to the segregation
of students at the primary, secondary and tertiary level. The
only way this can be achieved is through a public system which
is open and accessible to all students regardless of their
colour, class, culture, creed and geographical location. Such a
system must also be openly accessible to employment
opportunities for citizens regardless of colour, class,
culture, and creed.
When Angelo Gavielatos, the President of
the Australian Education Union, the union for public school
teachers, opposed home schooling as inconsistent with the
philosophy and importance of schooling itself' he is merely
being consistent with his opposition to segregation of students
in private, segregationist schools.
Gavrielatos 'Statement indicates the Folly of Segregation
and the Necessity of Social Integration for Social Cohesion.
According to the Australian, June 19, 2009, in Á Class of their
Own', Angelo Gavrielatos is quoted as saying:
Schooling is a very important socialisation agent, the
socialising is just as important as learning... it's about
students learning together and, just as importantly, learning to
live together ... the trend (separating students) in the Muslim
community is a cause for further concern, given the types of
enclaves that can generate. Schooling aims to break down
segregation. Education should ameliorate rather than exacerbate
social divisions.
If we're on about the development of a genuinely socially
cohesive society, any move that acts against that should at
least be questioned. When we start to enter the realm of
educating along ethno-religious lines, that should ring some
serious alarm bells for us as a society.
Reaction to Gavrielatos' Statements from the Independent
Education Union Australia ( IEUA)
A reading of three Media Statements on the website of the
Independent Education Union of Australia (IEUA) in reaction to
various statements made by Gavrielatos is of interest. The
following statements are extracted:
* The IEAU spokesperson said: We have the suggestion that
non-government school funding is tantamount to State sponsored
segregation which was just exacerbating class, religion, and
ethnic divides, according to Mr. Gavrielatos from the AEU which
ignores for example 150 years of Catholic education in this
country.
* What is nonsensical is to have a contribution to the
debate that seeks to introduce a Trojan horse in the form of the
schooling funding debate.
* The IEUA is most disappointed at the head-high tackle on
non-government schools by the Australian Education Union.
*Commentary suggesting that these schools somehow create
enclaves is misguided and divisive.
* The only alarm bells that should be ringing are those that
alert us to an attack on people of faith in our community.
* Recent comments attributed to Mr. Gavrielatos, federal
president of the AEU are misleading and offensive.
* It is ridiculous and offensive to make a blanket statement
that private school teachers and support staff educate the
cheapest and easiest to teach students.
* The IEUA hopes that the future of the school funding
debate are more broadly the structure and role of schools in our
communities can be noted by considered opinions and not
punctuated by the divisive debates of the past and certainly not
to demean the profession.
* We also need to unpack, sensibly and factually, the
apparent contradiction between the simultaneous white flight'
and
emergence of 'monocultural private schools'.
* ...it is time that fantasy opinion is replaced by sensible
analysis of the facts.
* The first step in this is to put the facts on the table
and stop dealing in visions of the past that never existed.
DOGS merely note that in the real world, if you segregate
students on the basis of class, colour, culture, creed or
geographical location, then you practice segregation of children
on those criteria. If the State pays you billions of dollars to
do so, then you are practising State-sponsored segregation. The
segregation of students in Northern Ireland and elsewhere has
long been recognised as exacerbating tribalism and lack of
social cohesion.
All the IEUA's spin doctoring and projection of evils of
segregation onto those who wish to integrate Australian children
can't change the word 'íntegrate' to
mean the word 'segregate' or vice versa. All
the attempts to push the consequences of an ethno-religious
education system under the political carpet will be futile when
reality bites back. The Australian Labor Party's elephant in the
room is growing larger every day, and Julia Gillard is fast
developing into an empress without any clothes.
The IEAU finally Stirs the State Aid debate against a 47
Year Old Policy of Softly-Softly and Advice of Influential Roman
Catholics in the 21st Century
1...The 47-Year-Old-Policy: The Editor of the Catholic
Weekly
DOGS quote from a work of an ex-Roman Catholic priest, Michael
Charles Hogan entitled The Catholic Campaign for State Aid,
Sydney 1978, at page one. Hogan quotes James Kelleher, the
editor of the Catholic Weekly
* The great lesson of the Catholic Federation's struggle for
justice is that in a pluralist society such as our own, we must
make friends rather than enemies, that we must offer an
out-stretched hand, not a clenched fist.
2 Advice from Influential Roman Catholics in
the 21st Century.
* Professor Patrick O'Farrell,
University of NSW
In an article entitled, 'A time to talk, a time
for quiet political lessons for the Australian Church'.
published in The Catholic Weekly of 9 January,
2000, Professor Patrick O'Farrell said:
Enthusiasts are often their causes' worst enemies...There
are times to shut up. Times to decline to speak and direct the
media to another person.
* Bro. Kelvin Canavan FMS, Director of Catholic
Education, Archdiocese of Sydney
In an article entitled 'From no Funding and Classes of 80 to
Funded Classes of 25: Transforming Catholic Education', The
Catholic Weekly, 9 January 2000, Bro Kelvin Canavan said:
There is a realisation that the arrangements in Australia
are better than those existing in most, if not all, other
countries. In order to maintain widespread community support for
non-government school funding, the leadership of Catholic
education has to manage skilfully the occasional debate in the
Press on the funding of non-government schools.
The ABC Broadcaster and Influential Roman Catholic
Commentator: Geraldine Doogue:
In a printed draft of a speech delivered 10 March Geraldine
Doogue said:
So my heroes are those in public life who watch their
language...who stretch the Australian people while
simultaneously realising long-standing Gothic fears of both a
rational and irrational kind.
(I wish to) ensure that no public commentary or behaviour
risks the harmony and cohesion that can never be taken for
granted in most societies but particularly those of the modern
pluralist type; that rather than assuming there's great depths
of confidence, far better to work on the basis that the
consensus is real but brittle...
I can just imagine some of the nameless fears gripping some
of the people walking down isolated, poorly-lit streets in a
place like Bradford or Tower Hamlets near London, knowing that
people who should know better and who don't live in such places
themselves are tapping Achilles heels about insiders and
outsiders that should never be considered.
State support for Ethno-Religious Schools Stratifies,
Fragments and Ghettoises Society
Public schools bring all children together
but
State support for ethno-religious schools leads to students
being segregated in their formative years. If students cannot
associate in their educational years, they will tend to be
separated for the remainder of their lives. Nothing causes
divisiveness, ignorance and bigotry more than denominational
systems of education which stretch from the kindergarten to the
university. The promotion of such systems mean that for every
generation there are groups of students and citizens growing up
ignorant of others. Such an education develops a fortress
mentality and eventually leads to tribalism along the lines of
class, creed, culture, and even gender. It leads to segregation
in later life and it is not surprising that in the Australian
society, since State Aid was given in the 1960's, there is now
State subsidisation of religious kindergartens, health funds,
aged care facilities, and even religious insurance societies and
funeral parlours. Church buildings themselves are now being
built and maintained from the State treasuries.
The Fundamental Difference between Public and Private
Church Schooling
The private interests of those seeking a
private education is summed up by a New Zealand born, Muslim
convert called Mrs Flint. She was quoted in The Australian
of 19 June 2009.. She said:
I found they ( an established network of Christians who were
home-schooling their children) were very well educated, well
mannered, and had very close family ties, a very strong sense of
identity and strong religious beliefs.
DOGS note that there is no mention here made of the public good
or the contribution of home schoolers to the common good. There
is only mention of their private attributes and belief systems.
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