PRESS RELEASE

Education Bill - Government About To Make A Mammoth Mistake On Faith Schools

The Government is about to make a mammoth mistake by making it easier for more “faith schools” to be created in this country – including more than one hundred Muslim schools.

The effects on community cohesion of such wholly unnecessary educational apartheid will prove catastrophic in the coming generations, says Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society.

The Government’s new educational proposals for trust schools will make it easier for religious organisations to convert hundreds more community schools, and bringing them under the control of churches and mosques. All these schools will be permitted to operate strict entry criteria which they will use – as they do at the moment – to quite ruthlessly to screen out difficult and disadvantaged pupils”.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said: “Religious organisations already control a third of our education system, and under these new plans this stranglehold will increase yet further. The Government has promised to ‘end selection’. But these new schools will increase selection, often handing the process over to priests and imams. Those without a reference from one of these clerics, will often be unable to stand a chance of getting their child into a publicly funded school, even though it might be right on their doorstep.”

Mr Wood said that promises to “consult” the local community before opening more faith schools were empty. “We were promised that new faith schools and academies would not be opened unless the local community wanted them, but on several occasions there has been a local rebellion against them which has been over-ridden or ignored.”

Mr Wood also said that the new Bill will make it increasingly easy for extremist religious groups and individuals to set up school trusts. “It has already happened with academies,” he said, “even though we were told that it wouldn’t.”

Mr Wood said: “The divisive nature of single faith schools is quite clear to see. Once every different religion starts to establish its own schools, we will see racial and religious fault lines forming that will ensure that some children never encounter others from different cultures. It is madness – everyone seems to be able to see the danger except the Government. It is up to the politicians to stop this educational apartheid before it starts, because once these schools are off the ground, the process will be almost impossible to reverse. We are storing up a disaster for future generations.”

22 February 2006

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