'Conservatives are hijacking state schools and using tax money to fund religious agendas'
Our Father, who art in heaven - and in our churches, synagogues, temples, mosques - and anywhere else, but not in our classrooms.
This is the message from a group of parents threatening to take on public schools that favour one religion above others.
The group claim that many schools are disobeying the Constitution and the Department of Education's policy on religion.
For them, the law is clear: the curriculum must cover all the main religions.
"All religions should have their rights protected. If they wish to have religious observances, which would include praying, in public schools, these must represent the realities of the country," argues Hans Pietersen of the Afrikaans Movement of Freethinkers.
He says that, in reality, schools use teaching time to promote one religion over another by, for example, praying to a particular god during a lesson or sticking only Bible verses on classroom walls.
In a paper Pietersen delivered two months ago for the Free Society Institute, he said: "Instead of teaching children about the rich diversities in cultures and religions, a school reads Bible stories and prays to Jesus before lunch-boxes are opened."
He added that "instead of setting up their own religious schools, as they are allowed to do and should be encouraged to do, conservatives are hijacking state schools and using taxpayer money to fund religious agendas".
Professor George Claassen, a founder member of Sceptic SA, an online group for those with a "sceptical disposition to life", said children were being victimised, teased and told they believed in Satan when they identified themselves as being outside the predominant religion.
"You go there to be taught. Now you get teachers preaching and praying. This should happen at home, not in the science class," said Claassen.
But Kallie Kriel, CEO of civil rights group Afriforum, which has volunteered to pay the legal fees of any school with a Christian ethos taken to court by the movement, accused the group of trying to force parents and pupils not to participate in religion at school.
Kriel said parents had a basic right to decide on religious policy at schools, as long as it did not interfere with the rights of non-participants.
The movement also complained about schools' attitudes of "if you don't like it, find another school".
Johannesburg dad Attie Koekemoer said this should not be the case with public schools.
He wants his Grade RR daughter to attend his former primary school, which is a block away from his Northcliff home. Instead, he has been forced to enrol her in a private school further away because of its overbearing Christian ethos.
Koekemoer, a former minister in the Dutch Reformed Church who now describes himself as a sceptic, said he had issues with the Christian ethos finding its way into the classroom.
He said children's books on display at an information evening earlier this year were "loaded with Christian themes".
"In their writing books it would say, A is for Ark, B is for Babel, C is for Christ," he said.
Koekemoer said he didn't want to chase religion out of schools, but out of class time.
"The bottom line is: we're paying tax every month to pay for Christian missionary work."
Two years ago, the Department of Education said many schools were struggling with its policy on religion and that Christianity was taught as the only "true religion".
Department spokesman Granville Whittle said the policy was monitored by its provincial and national departments, and parents and teachers could complain via its call centre and in writing.
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