Summarised by Centrist
In an opinion piece for Bassett, Brash & Hide, Scott Kennedy, the principal of Manukau Christian School, argues that attacks on Christian schools like KingsWay reflect a deeper bias in New Zealand’s education system, that punishes traditional values while forcing parents to fund a secular moral agenda they may not share.
Kennedy criticises recent media coverage of KingsWay School, claiming that outlets like Stuff are using isolated misconduct allegations to smear Christian education as a whole. “Every school teaches a worldview,” he writes. “The idea that state schools are neutral while Christian schools indoctrinate is a myth.”
He argues that secular public education increasingly promotes ideological agendas around gender and sexuality while traditional Christian schools offer clarity, structure, and grounded moral teaching. “The very worldview that gets Christian schools targeted in the press is the same one used to justify keeping them under-resourced,” he says.
The real injustice, Kennedy contends, is that Christian families are forced to pay twice: once through taxes that support secular schools, and again through tuition for the schools that reflect their beliefs.
Meanwhile, he says, the public system faces falling literacy, rising mental health issues, and a generation “unmoored from meaning.”
He proposes that education funding should follow the student, allowing families to choose where their dollars go. “If parents actually had to choose – if they weren’t forced to fund schools pushing values they don’t believe in – many of these secular approaches would die a quiet death in the free marketplace of ideas,” he argues.
