Religious Instruction In Education

Chronicle (Levin), 24 March 1949, Page 9

Religious Instruction In Education

— Press Association)

(Per

WELLINGTON, ' March 23. An organisation. to provide for religious instruction in all spheres of education in the Dominion'was set up in Wellington today to bp known as the New Zealand Council of Christian Education. This body will incorporate th& present Bible in Sehools League which was established nearly 30 years ago and .will continue the League '3 work on a much wider basis. Diseussing the new council tonight, Eev. D. D. Maclachlan (Christchurch) and Mr. H. J. Mackie, president of the Canterbury branch of the League, s'aid its establishment was the " culmination of suggestions made to the League in 1-943 by the National Council, of Churches. These suggestions envisage carrying the League 's work, which was concerned with primary sehools only, into seeondary sehools, , training eolleges and universities^ q Although most seeondary sehools had their own arrangeraents " for religious iustructions the NatiouaP Council felt that such ihstruction would be better • implemeuted if it were part of a cooi'dinated plau. The new body, they continued, would eall .upou the Dominion's leading edueatiouists to act as advisers in ifcs work. A committee of, five members, two representing primary sehools and the three "higher institutions of learning, would be set up to assist the president, the Primate of New Zealand (Archbishop West Watson) and his officers who in their turn would represent all the churches ' embodied in the National Council of Churches. Unlil the new council was fully established, the League would carry on the work in, primary sehools, added Mr. Mackie.