According to the Independent, a new clause in the funding contract between schools and the Department of Education is on the brink of causing a crisis.
The relatively new clause says that a school cannot teach any views that are contrary to scientific or historical evidence.
According to the article, Rabbis are concerned that they will not be able to teach issues such as age of the universe in the classic traditional sense of the world being less than 6000 years old as scientific evidence proves the world being billions of years old. Those working on this issue are saying that signing the new contract could be considered heresy.
While nothing in the Torah excludes the possibility of the world being billions of years old, I don't think Jews should be obligated to teach that, as the traditional approach is also valid from a Torah perspective. I doubt they will agree to teach even the possibility of the world being billions of years old.
How this will be resolved remains to be seen. I expect political clout will be used to have the clause removed. I have a hard time believing all Orthodox Jewish schools will forgo all that government funding. I wonder what the relevant Christian schools (the ones that also believe the universe is less than 6000 years old) teach and how they will deal with this issue.
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