|
Tory promises to fund religious schools |
|
Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register
|
|
Tuesday, 24 July 2007 |
 Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory
Tory has also promised to bring back his political mentor, and the man who extended full funding to Catholic high schools in 1984, former Ontario premier Bill Davis. Davis would head up a “Public Education Fairness Implementation Commission” to look into the details of adding up to 53,000 students in more than 100 schools to the publicly funded provincial education system. Full integration of religious schools in the provincial education system would be achieved by 2010, Tory said.
“It’s a good deal. To be included in the public system is the best deal we could have,” said Islamic Society of North America’s Mustafa Rawji. ISNA runs Islamic elementary schools in Richmond Hill and Cambridge, Ont., plus a high school in Mississauga.
The loose system of privately supported Muslim schools in Ontario caters to just 6,700 students. The majority of Muslim families can’t afford tuition and transportation costs for private schools and thus opt to send their children either to Catholic schools — where they hope for an atmosphere of ethical values and religious respect — or to public schools, said Rawji.
Adding Muslim schools to the provincial education system would help affirm the success Muslims have had as fully integrated members of Canadian society, said Rawji.
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne claims Tory’s numbers don’t add up and that Muslims have plenty of opportunity to integrate into Canadian society as Muslims while attending public schools. Muslim students in Toronto public schools are allowed to pray according to Muslim custom and have their culture accommodated, said Wynne.
“There’s no clarity in the Conservatives’ platform as to how they would pay for this proposal,” Wynne told The Catholic Register. “Fifty-three-thousand kids in private, faith-based schools, if we were to fully fund that it would be in the neighbourhood of $500 million. We need that $500 million in the system we currently have.”
Using an average grant of $9,000 per student, the additional operating cost for 53,000 students would come to $477 million per year. Tory said it was unlikely that all 53,000 religious school students would join the public system.
Ira Walfish, chair of the Multi-Faith Coalition for Equal Funding of Faith-Based Schools, believes religious schools might ultimately be most comfortable under the umbrella of Catholic school boards.
“There is more of a natural fit with another faith-based board, like the Catholics,” said Walfish.
Though it’s too early to say just how the relationship might work, at least Catholic school boards understand the aims and challenges of running a school in the context of faith, he said.
“I just mean the Catholics are a faith and the public school boards aren’t. There’s more of a natural fit with the Catholic school board. Whether or not that will play out, I don’t know.”
The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association hasn’t yet thought about whether it would actively welcome an initiative to bring non-Catholic religious schools into the provincial system.
“We have the support of the other main (political) parties for our system. That’s the important thing to us. What they decide to do with the other ones, as I’ve said before, that’s their choice,” said Bernard Murray, president of the association.
Murray reiterated the position of the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops and of Ontario’s Catholic trustees that all parents have a natural right to choose a religious education for their children.
“We have said right from the get-go that we certainly respect the right of parents to choose the education for their children. That’s sort of a prime principle we have stood by all along,” said Murray.
At a July 23 press conference Tory said he hoped school boards would do more than recognize the principles involved. He hoped Catholic and public boards would “welcome the chance so they can broaden out the mandate for public education.”
Publicly funded religious schools would have to teach the full Ontario curriculum, hire only Ontario Teachers’ College certified teachers and participate in province-wide standardized tests, Tory said.
Recommend this article... |
Michael Swan, The Catholic Register |
| About the author: |
| Michael Swan is Associate Editor of The Catholic Register. He is an award-winning writer and photographer and holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University.
|
|
