Comment 59 by Furious Duane :

This is why I worry about having children in Australia. Recently there has been talk about pushing religion onto kids in the public schools, while kids not wanting to do this would be segregated and not taught anything let alone biology or evolution. I asked my wife and she agrees even though she is Agnostic this would damage a child beyond belief. I think because of the rise of Atheism, the church is panicking and wants to indoctrinate children as early as possible in order to increase flock numbers and turn them into sheeple.

I know various religious groups have been pushing for more religious instruction but I don't believe students won't be taught biology or evolution. I've not heard of any plans to stop teaching biology or evolution in science classes. I also honestly doubt the religious instruction will have any effect on the vast majority of students particularly those who have atheist parents. My son came home from his first week at school and asked "whose gwod ?". He always was a little hard of hearing.

The main problem I can see is keeping the religious, like the evangelicals who run the chaplaincy programmes, away from the actual teaching. It should be taught as comparative religion with an emphasis on how many different kinds there are.

Michael