Southwick stands up for UJEB
MEMBER for Caulfield David Southwick has called on the Victorian government to review changes it has made to the special religious instruction (SRI) program which has resulted in hundreds of Jewish children at non-Jewish schools being denied the opportunity to attend previously offered Jewish education classes.
As reported in The AJN last week, the classes run by the United Jewish Education Board (UJEB) have been cancelled at a number of schools in the heart of Jewish Melbourne in recent weeks, including Caulfield Junior College and Elsternwick, Murrumbeena, Carnegie and Valkstone Primary Schools.
During a parliamentary adjournment debate last week, Southwick urged Minister of Education James Merlino to clarify the changes that had led to the classes being cancelled and to give UJEB financial assistance to help it perform its “valuable” services. “The action I seek is for the Minister to support special religious instruction programs by assisting the United Jewish Education Board, which provides Jewish education to students in government schools, with funding to aid its development of curriculum and resources, and to clarify the ministerial directive to ensure that all principals give students the opportunity to participate,” Southwick said.
“Before the last Victorian election in 2014, the Victorian Coalition had committed funding of $300,000 over five years to aid the development of the board’s curriculum and resource.”
Telling The AJN “Labor’s position on special religious instruction must be clarified immediately to give all students the opportunity to have a Jewish education with UJEB”, Southwick added that he wanted the Andrews government to match the Liberal Party’s financial commitment to UJEB.
Responding to Southwick, Merlino did not guarantee the funding, but did praise UJEB and its programs.
“I gave a commitment to Yossi [Goldfarb, UJEB president] and Marlo [Newton, UJEB CEO] that I would continue to work with them in terms of SRI and the broader role UJEB plays in ensuring that Jewish families whose children go to government schools have access to language, such as the fantastic Hebrew language program at Glen Eira College, and in terms of Jewish traditions more broadly,” Merlino said.
“They took me through the numbers of Jewish children both at primary and secondary level whose parents have chosen to enrol them in the government system. The number of such students is increasing quite substantially. This is an important area of public policy … I have engaged with UJEB and will continue to do so.”
ZOE KRON
Caulfield MP David Southwick. Photo: Peter Haskin
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