It’s hard to think of a more regressive policy
The BHA’s Stephen Evans on the “faith” schools issue.
Theresa May confirmed today that the government plans to capitulate to the demands of religious groups by relaxing admissions rules for faith-based academies, allowing them to select all of their pupils along religious lines.
It’s hard to think of a more regressive policy than the facilitation of greater religious segregation of children and young people in our education system.
And what are we to make of the government’s warnings about schoolchildren having little or no understanding of others, when their policies seem destined to exacerbate exactly that? Only last year the schools minister Lord Nash said the government had “no plans to review the 50% limit for faith-based admissions to free schools”, describing the cap as “an important way of supporting these schools to be inclusive and to meet the needs of a broad mix of families”. So what changed?
Well the PM changed, for a start, but Evans cites the fact that more school places are needed and “free schools” are seen as part of the solution.
The success of free schools policy very much relies on school sponsors coming forward – and until now the Catholic Church has been reluctant to do so, rejecting limitations on the extent to which it can discriminate against non-Catholics. It insists that the public money it receives to run schools should be spent on providing schools to serve only people of the Catholic faith.
Here’s the thing, though, education is one thing and indoctrination is another. Good education, properly understood, is fundamentally opposed to indoctrination. Schools should not be Catholic or Islamic or Lutheran any more than they should be Nazi or SWP.
It’s clear that this latest proposal to relax admission arrangements follows relentless lobbying from religious organisations of the government to remove the 50% cap. But by rushing to satisfy the demands of faith-based education providers, the government risks recklessly neglecting the civic purpose of state education – which surely includes preparing children for their role as equal citizens of a multicultural, religiously diverse liberal democracy.
Not just the civic purpose. The government even more risks neglecting the intellectual purpose of state education.
This from a country which annually celebrates an attempted act of terrorism by a Catholic man who’d been driven over the edge by religious persecution in his own country. They *know* where religious exclusion leads, both in their own history and in Europe, and yet they’re willing to try it again.
Yeah… that’s not exactly how we Brits see November 5th. I suspect that not many people could actually give you chapter and verse on what happened – “something about blowing up the houses of parliament” is probably the best you’d get. Bear in mind this was over 400 years ago! The events have receded into mythology.
Today, Bonfire Night is a fun night where we build a big bonfire, let off fireworks, wave sparklers, bake potatoes and sausages and drink beer. It’s a bit of family fun. Most places don’t even put a guy on the fire these days – too disturbing for the kids.
Having said that, the whole drift towards faith schools needs resisting. Bloody May is a practising christian. We can do without that.
Maybe someone should open up SJW schools, and only admit those who are open and willing to explore all avenues of Social Justice.
I’m wondering what they would say if someone decided to open a school that only admits atheists? And it appears this could set up a need for atheist schools, since if all schools can select their students based on religion, it might be difficult for non-religious parents to find a school that will take their kids.
@1 Seth
The context was not as simple as that. The threat of Spanish Catholic invasion had diminished but had not disappeared entirely and English Catholics were regarded as fifth columnists. Some, like Fawkes, certainly were.
He and his co-conspirators weren’t necessarily ‘driven over the edge’, they wanted to restore the supremacy of the Catholic Church. If they had succeeded in assassinating the King and most of Parliament, the result could have been a Catholic ascendancy or a massacre of England’s Catholics.
“I’m wondering what they would say if someone decided to open a school that only admits atheists?”
Or Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster schools. According to Wiki it’s already recognized as a religion in the Netherlands and New Zealand.