David Rogers; with files from Joanne Laucius, National Post; CanWest News Service

Published: Tuesday, October 24, 2006

OTTAWA - The Quebec Ministry of Education has told unlicensed Christian evangelical schools that they must teach Darwin's theory of evolution and sex education or close their doors after a school board in the Outaouais region complained the provincial curriculum was not being followed.

"Quebec children are legally required to follow the provincial curriculum ... but these evangelical schools teach their own courses on creationism and sexuality that don't follow the Quebec curriculum," said Pierre Daoust, director-general of the Commission Scolaire au Coeur-des-Vallees in Thurso, Que.

Mr. Daoust's complaint sparked the province-wide investigation.

Quebec law requires school boards to assure the Ministry of Education that every child between the ages six of and 16, with the exception of home-schooled children, receives an adequate education, he said.

But the 20 elementary and high school students who attend a school operated by Eglise Evangelique near Saint-Andre-Avellin, Que., are being educated according to a Bible-based curriculum and their high school diplomas will not be recognized anywhere in Canada, he said.

Supporters of Eglise Evangelique, part of the l'Association des eglises evangeliques du Quebec, counter that the school teaches a "world view" that is essential for their students.

"We offer a curriculum based on a Christian world view rather than humanistic world view," said Alan Buchanan, chairman of a committee that reorganized the school's administration this past summer, as well as a former Quebec public school teacher.

Mr. Buchanan said Eglise Evangelique teaches evolution as well as intelligent design.

"We want the children to understand what they're going to meet in the outside world, and also what's wrong with the theory," he said. "We also teach that a better theory -- that God created the universe and so on."

While the school doesn't teach sex education, it does teach biology, he said.

"You have the Christian world view that says sex should only be in the marriage and a public school system that teaches kids about sexuality," Mr. Buchanan said. "We believe students should be taught abstinence."

He said the school met provincial guidelines during two reviews conducted in the 1990s, although they were asked to add a Canadian history course.

Ministry spokeswoman Marie-France Boulay said yesterday the province will negotiate for several weeks with an unspecified number of evangelical schools to determine whether they can meet provincial standards that include the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution.

Ms. Boulay said two or three unlicensed evangelical schools in the Outaouais are affected.

In addition to the 20 students at Eglise Evangelique, another 40 students attend an unlicensed evangelical school in Gatineau, Que., which falls under the jurisdiction of the Commission Scolaire des Draveurs. There is a third in Hull, Que., Mr. Daoust said. The other school boards haven't complained.

The Quebec government knows of about 30 unlicensed religious schools in the province, including Hasidic schools and several evangelical Christian schools in Montreal, said Dermod Travis, who served on Quebec's Comite sur la langue d'enseignement, a tribunal that hears special cases from the province's educational system.

 ...story continued from canada.com

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