The Department of Education (DoE) released its Social Cohesion Education Hub in June, a resource hub it claims will help teachers “address antisemitism and support respectful, inclusive and welcoming learning environments”.
The hub was developed after Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal called for it and includes various resources on antisemitism and discrimination from early childhood to Year 12.
However, teachers have criticised it because of it conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
Teachers and School Staff for Palestine (TSS4P) groups from across the country, along with Jews Against the Occupation ’48, have launched a boycott campaign, starting with an online pledge. So far, it has been signed by almost 200 teachers and school staff, including members of the NSW Teachers Federation, National Tertiary Education Union, Independent Education Union, State School Teachers’ Union of WA and Australian Education Union state branches in Victoria, South Australia and Northern Territory.
The pledge commits teachers to “teaching and standing against racism in all its forms”. It urges teachers to boycott the hub “because it is an attempt to silence the Palestine movement while masquerading as anti-racism”.
“It promotes denial of the genocide in Gaza … [and] will fuel anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, and trivialise real antisemitism.”
The pledge calls on education unions to join the call to scrap the hub and for schools to stop disciplining teachers who talk about Palestine or wear keffiyehs.
According to TSS4P NSW, the hub includes a history of Israel that does not mention Palestine. Its resource titled “October 7 and the current conflict” does not mention the death toll in Gaza, the displacement of 2 million Palestinians, or the destruction of schools, hospitals and universities.
The DoE said the hub was put together by a “project advisory group of education and social cohesion experts, including from the Office of the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism”.
Segal was president of the pro-Israel Executive Council of Australian Jewry from 2019 to 2023. She has referred to Palestinians as “barbarians” and supported United States President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza and build holiday resorts.
“Teachers are not neutral on racism, we condemn it,” TSS4P NSW said. “We are not neutral on the Holocaust, we condemn it; we are not neutral on the Bondi massacre; we condemn it; and we can’t be neutral on the genocide in Gaza either.”
[Teachers and School Staff for Palestine are calling on teachers and education workers to sign on to the Pledge to Boycott the Social Cohesion Education Hub. Isaac Nellist is a pre-service teacher and a member of the NSW Teachers Federation]