Schools Baulk At Cost Of Pell's Text
The Sunday Age
Sunday August 20, 2000
The Catholic Church's controversial religious education textbooks will cost Melbourne's Catholic schools and families nearly $2 million a year, with Archbishop George Pell ruling that every student must have a copy.
The Archdiocese of Melbourne has written to the principals of its 331 primary and secondary schools to explain the charges for the To Know, Worship and Love texts as a ``just price that will not place an undue burden on families or schools".
But the move has angered cash-strapped Catholic schools, which fear that the cost of the compulsory texts, an average of about $15 a year from prep through to year 10, will place an unfair burden on many struggling families and on school budgets.
The church has told schools to ``make provision for the new texts in their budgets and booklists for 2001". In cases where schools have to buy texts for students in genuine financial hardship, the church expects the schools will raise the money through normal fund-raising efforts.
One primary school principal said many schools would be forced to find $4000 extra a year for the texts.
``There are real equity issues here," the principal said. ``We run a very tight budget in Catholic schools. If you take $3000 out of your general recurrent budget, it means something else has to go."
The texts have attracted widespread criticism since 1997 when Dr Pell appointed a Catholic vicar, Monsignor Peter Elliott, to oversee their development.
The books, which are due to be phased into schools next year, replace the less-structured religious education guidelines that schools have used to develop their own school-based lessons.
Catholic educators and academics say the concept of using a mandated text for Melbourne's 136,000 primary and secondary students is at odds with modern educational practice and theory.
The charges vary according to the year level. Prep students will pay $12.50, while students in years 1 to 6 will pay $15 each. Year 7 and 8 students will be charged $25 and year 9 and 10 students $27.50.
The letter sent to principals says ``the ideal is that families purchase the texts directly".
``Where direct ownership is not possible, class or library sets may be provided on condition that each student has access to his or her own book for the duration of the school year, and preferably that it is kept in the possession of the student so that it can be taken home," the letter says.
The archdiocese is publishing the texts. Profit from the sale of the books will, according to the church, ``be used to develop future resources and RE structures in the archdiocese of Melbourne".
Monsignor Elliott defended the decision to charge students. While it was preferable that students have their own copy, schools could buy class sets.
``The prices have been kept down to a minimum because we are publishing the texts ourselves. These are family-friendly and school-friendly prices," he said.
``The priority in any Catholic school is to teach the Catholic faith. That's the bottom line."
One primary school principal concerned by the lack of consultation said that from the little they had seen of the texts, ``a lot of the content is very outdated, it smacks of what I was taught 40 years ago. It's a bit scary really."
Sister Brigid Arthur, an educator with the Brigidine Congregation, agrees. ``There has been some trialling of the materials but it has not been extensive and this can cause difficulty when buying curriculum materials sight unseen."
Sister Arthur said the texts needed ``extensive rewriting" to ``make them more attractive to young people".
© 2000 The Sunday Age