Official Perspectives of Some Australian Fundamentalist Schools, 2(5)

Abstract

"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it". Proverbs 22:6 (From the Prospectus of Son Centre Christian School Ltd.) In 1986 Peshkin published "God's Choice - The Total World of a Christian Fundamentalist School." It was an account of Bethany Baptist Academy, a school encompassing one doctrine, one truth and one way. Peshkin (1986) observed that Bethany represented "the fastest growing segment of American education ... reputed to be opening at the rate of two and then three and four new schools per day ... " He continued that there remains "the question of what kind of alternative the fundamentalist Christian school offers". Erickson (in Peshkin , 1986) noted that the book would be "particularly useful as an antidote to the profound ignorance of fundamentalist schools that lies behind much public and private policy today." In Australia Anderson (1993) observed that the previous decade had witnessed a rapid growth of fundamentalist schools although as yet these constitute fewer than 2 per cent of the total. With the changes announced in the Australian Federal Budget of 1996, fundamentalist Christian schools may increase in numbers for conditions governing their establishment were relaxed. We know little about Australian fundamentalist Christian schools and face the question Peshkin confronted, namely "what kind of alternative the fundamentalist Christian school offers?" This paper examines official perspectives of fundamentalist schools in one of Australia's oldest cities and an Australian rural town. The paper focuses on the influence of faith on the three areas of enrolments, reason for enrolment and curriculum.