Humanist Society of New Zealand
Submission on 2024 Education and Training Amendment Bill – Charter Schools submission
29 July 2024
About the Humanist Society of New Zealand
The Humanist Society of New Zealand is a national charity working to promote Humanism, support and represent the non-religious and promote a secular state and equal treatment in law and policy of everyone, regardless of religion or belief.
The Humanist Society of New Zealand works on behalf of the 48.6% (over 2.2 million) of people in NZ who declare themselves non-religious, and who seek to live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity.
The Humanist Society of New Zealand has long advocated for secular education in New Zealand schools.
We support Secular, compulsory, and free education, without religious instruction or observance in all Schools.
Our primary interest in this submission is to continue the principle established with the passing of New Zealand’s first Education Act 1877: that the nationwide education system in New Zealand should be secular, compulsory, and free.
We disagree with the re-establishment of charter schools. We believe that all schools that receive state funding should be required to teach the New Zealand curriculum and employ trained and registered teachers in teaching roles.
There are two sections of particular interest we provide comment on:
212Y Religious instruction and observances
The current Ministry of Education guidelines for Religious Instruction (RI) are for schools to provide RI only where parents of students have opted into their children’s participation. This change was made in 2018 to comply with New Zealand Human Rights laws and due to discrimination.
Charter School should not go backwards in retuning to opt out for Religious Instruction in schools.
Our recommendation:
We recommend this clause reaffirms that Charter Schools follow the guidelines from the Ministry of Education. Where RI is provided by the school, parents of students must opt in to the lessons, and schools must offer valid alternative to RI if the lessons are taking place when the school would normally be open for teaching.
212ZA Religious instruction: appointments to special positions relating to character of charter school
Employers should not be able to force employees to take part in religious worship. It is a breach of human rights. This is clear discrimination and has no place in our education system.
Our recommendation:
Remove this clause allowing schools to force employees to participate in religious worship.
While the Humanist Society of New Zealand understands that the education system is delivering effective education we are concerned that Charter Schools in New Zealand will run religious instruction programmes that advocate beliefs that are not supported by scientific evidence and in contradiction to the New Zealand Curriculum.
This manifestly harms pupils’ understanding of science and their future potential to fully engage in society