Study of religion: Now essential for the development of religious education in Catholic schools

In the last twenty years the teaching of religious education in secondary schools has changed and adapted in response to two major influences: the changing religious landscape of Australian society and the use of state-based religion studies syllabi as part of or instead of school and diocesan religious education programmes. Within this time the teaching of world religions has been firmly established in many senior secondary classrooms and even in the middle schools and junior secondary schools. The number of students selecting Study of Religion rather than school based Religious Education has increassed dramatically since the early 1980s. One of the attractive features of subjects like Study of Religion is that students can 'count' religion as contributing towards tertiary entrance scores. This paper endorses the introduction and acceptance of Study of Religion in Catholic schools, highlights some of the significant developments which have taken place in the teaching of Study of Religion, and raises points of scholarly disagreement with a number of the assertions McCarthy (in this issue) makes regarding the place and purpose of Study of Religion in Catholic schools.