Religion News Service
NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA, March 3, 2005: A school exam’s attempt to replace the dating system term B.C. (“Before Christ”) with B.C.E. (“Before Common Era”) has created a stir among government officials in the Australian state of New South Wales. “This is political correctness gone mad,” said Jillian Skinner, shadow education minister in the New South Wales parliament, according to Australian news sources. Skinner said Wednesday (March 2) she had received complaints from parents of some of the 150,000 seventh-grade students who took the English Language and Literacy Assessment on Tuesday. “The government is indoctrinating their children against terminology that has been around for centuries,” Skinner said of why parents’ ire was aroused. The exam featured a question about Nile River flooding in Ancient Egypt, marking the event as occurring in 590 B.C.E. A footnote to the question explained the term means “Before Common Era,” an alternative to “Before Christ.” Carmel Tebbutt, education minister of the New South Wales Parliament, ordered the change in the exam reversed, according to the Daily Telegraph in Sydney. Tebbutt said “Before Common Era” is appropriate for academics and museum curators, but not for schools. “It should have been left as ‘B.C.’ with a footnote explaining that ‘B.C.E.’ is an alternative,” Tebbutt told Parliament, the Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.
While some Australians are opposing the use of “B.C.E.,” the words “Before Christ” have been removed from history education in some United States classrooms without causing a stir. Michael Pons, spokesman for the Washington-based National Education Association, a professional organization representing 2.7 million educators, said he has not come across guidelines for chronology terms in tests or textbooks. “There are books in the United States that use the term `Before Common Era,'” Pons said. “I’m not aware of this being a controversy.”
HPI Note: Hinduism Today, HPI and Himalayan Academy use the form “BCE” and “CE” (“Current Era”) for dates and recommend this form for all Hindu publications.