Hindu Council has been involved with the NSW Department of School Education since 2003 in drafting the original syllabus which was introduced in 2005. Cambridge University Press published the textbook for the course covering all the five religions. In 2015 we were again consulted by the publishers when the updated version of the textbook was published.
Hindu Council has not been involved in any discussions with the Queensland Department of Education. However, we have been contacted by some students for interview/questions while doing their assignments.
No other State Education Department has Studies of Religion course in their schools
The main difference between GRE and SRE courses is:
GRE courses have a properly developed syllabus by the State Education department and are offered as an assessable unit of course for qualifications for HSC. Any entitled student can undertake the course. Over the years that hardly any HSC student of Indian/Hindu heritage has opted for the Study of Religion Course unfortunately. The reason could be expecting not to get high grade point average for HSC. But students of generally Christian or Judaic background have opted for studying about Hindu faith. Hindu Council has given talks on Hinduism in some schools. This gives us the advantage to reach students of other faiths to learn about Hinduism, which we generally don’t get through SRE.
SRE courses syllabi are generally developed by the respective faith group provider. Department of education does not interfere in deciding the course content. It only provides authorisation to the course provider to appoint teachers of proper character to avoid paedophilia.
