A policy permitting Muslim males to decline to shake hands with females at a public school is “sexist”, the NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes says.
The Hurstville Boys Campus of Georges River College in Sydney last year agreed to an “agreed protocol” for its annual awards day which allowed some boys to decline to shake hands with several female presenters.
That move has been criticised by several high-profile Islamic figures, as well as Mr Stokes’ colleagues, although the Education Department has stood by the protocols which it said would create “an open and tolerant attitude”.
Speaking to 2GB radio in Sydney this afternoon, Mr Stokes said “as a general principle, of course kids should shake hands, that’s the accepted norm”.
“If we have a situation where boys or girls for cultural reasons don’t want to shake the hands of people of the opposite sex, a common sense view would suggest that’s a sexist position and that can’t be tolerated,” he said.
But Mr Stokes appeared to contradict himself, suggesting schools would need to be sensitive to cultural differences.
“When I look at the options available, clearly putting out a statewide policy mandating a particular form of salutation is not going to be effective,” he said.
Catering for Years 7-10, the Hurstville Boys Campus is a culturally diverse school, with 87 per cent of students coming from non-English-speaking backgrounds.
The Australian also reported that the state’s Minister for Women, Tanya Davies, had forcefully expressed displeasure at the school’s policy during a party room meeting.
Mr Stokes’ colleagues Peter Phelps and Damien Tudehope have also criticised the “agreed protocol”.
Mr Phelps last week said: “These are government schools, and essentially they are secular institutions and they should reflect the nature of Australian society as it is.”
The “agreed protocol” was developed following consultation between staff, students and parents.
The instruction is understood to derive from an Islamic hadith — a report describing the words, actions, or habits of the Islamic prophet Mohammed — stating that “it is better to be stabbed in the head with an iron needle than to touch the hand of a woman who is not permissible to you”.