Special Religious Education’s future assured
Religious leaders from all faiths met last week to recognise those involved in Special Religious Education.
Cardinal George Pell, Yair Miller, Rachele Schonberger, Minister Verity Firth and Vic Alhadeff
Academy BJE [Board of Jewish Education] and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies were represented at the evet celebration held at the Department of Education and Training in Sydney.
Present were many religious leaders including his Eminence George Cardinal Pell, Mr Khaled Sukkarieh, chairman of the Islamic Council of NSW, and the Minister of Education and Training the Hon Verity Firth. A video message from Dr Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney was screened to the participants.
This day, organised by the major faiths represented in NSW was the first of its kind. It applauded the teachers and volunteers who teach SRE (scripture) in the many thousands of schools across NSW every week.
Mr Yair Miller, President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, spoke about the importance of education in the Jewish religion and quoted many examples of this in the Talmud. He paid tribute to Mrs Rachele Schonberger, Principal of Academy BJE as well as the staff and teachers and he outlined a typical Jewish SRE lesson.
Schonberger told J-Wire: “There are over 2000 pupils in NSW schools receiving Jewish education through the BJE. Our 56 teachers travel far and wide although the quota allocated to each school is only half an hour a week.”
The Hon Verity Firth then mentioned that the Government was committed to the future of SRE signalling that the recent issue of teaching ethics in schools instead of religion would be no more than a choice but not a replacement.
