Government backs down on prayer rules

The Government last night backed down on a proposal to issue guidelines on the place of religion and prayers in state schools.

Martin Connelly, senior manager for the Ministry of Education, told the Herald it was not moving ahead with a proposal it floated before a select committee two weeks ago requiring state primary and intermediate schools to give advance warning of assemblies featuring prayers or hymns.

"One of the things that we have been thinking about is that probably this is an issue that doesn't affect the vast majority of schools. There may be some schools for whom it's an issue, and therefore it's probably not all that productive to issue guidelines to absolutely every school.

"What we intend to do is to offer our advice to those schools who may seek it."

Mr Connelly stressed that there were never any guidelines.

"What there was was a discussion on whether or not guidelines were needed."

The reversal came as the ministry's proposal attracted heavy fire from Anglican archbishops yesterday. The archbishops said the guidelines would prejudice parents' right to shape their children's spirituality and values.

The two archbishops, Brown Turei and David Moxon, said the proposed advice was unnecessarily prescriptive.

In a statement endorsed by the country's Anglican bishops, they said that until now, the rights of parents and their children had been protected by an "opt-out" provision allowing children to stay away from or leave school gatherings where there were prayers and hymns.

The archbishops said provisions for participation were already controlled by democratically elected school boards of trustees.

The new guidelines undermined these boards.

The archbishops said the philosophy that underpinned the Tomorrow's Schools reforms of the 90s aimed, in part, to devolve power and responsibilities to boards of trustees, giving them scope to determine the character of their schools so they reflected their communities.

The ministry's proposed guidelines cut across this intention, in the name of protecting schools against a modest and unspecified number of complaints from some parents.

"The fundamental principle is that a young child is, to some extent, under the mantle of its parents," said Archbishop Moxon. "As parents, we have the right to choose which values and spirituality we will open them to, or encourage them to experience.

"That right of parental influence is protected now through the boards of trustees - which may choose to have out-of-school-hours assemblies with prayers and hymns."

The archbishops said the guidelines also risked being inconsistent and contradictory, because while effectively suppressing prayer and hymns, they would not discourage karakia.

Standard karakia, as used by kaumatua throughout New Zealand, commonly contained specific Judaeo-Christian references.

Archbishop Turei said he had never heard karakia endorse a specific denomination or religious organisation.


Ministry's plan

* Education Ministry proposed to make schools give notice of assemblies featuring prayers and hymns.

* Parents would have had to give written consent for children to attend.

* Teachers and principals would have been warned not to lead prayers and hymns in case this suggested to students that taking part was compulsory.

* Teachers would have been told to shun "whole-of-school instruction or observances".