Government delivers a new clutch of children to the evangelists

As the new school year starts, many more children will have been enrolled into 'faith schools'. This is because the Government has ensured that there are increasing numbers of such schools. Indeed, The Times Educational Supplement revealed that it has been permitting the transfer of community schools into the hands of the Church at an increasing rate, often without the necessary tendering procedures that it created in the first place.

In Northumbria alone, seven schools have been changed from community schools to Church schools and it is happening in other parts of the country.

Even more depressing is the opening of the first Hindu School in Harrow. The Krishna-Avanti primary is already heavily over-subscribed. It will have its own temple, vegetarian catering facilities, and lessons in Sanskrit and yoga.

The school was originally aimed at strictly-vegetarian families, but it provoked claims that it would rule out most of the estimated 15,000 Hindu children living in the borough. The requirement was later ditched, with admissions now being devolved to local temples.

Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said: “Until now, the Hindu community has been a pathfinder in integration. The new school will not be diverse at all, ethnically or religiously, and its opening will make surrounding community schools less diverse. This will deprive the new pupils of the multiplicity of other cultures and backgrounds and also deprive the schools to which they would otherwise be admitted of some excellent role models. The Government’s obsession with opening Christian schools engenders a “me too” attitude, and this is the result – racial and religious segregation.”

Indeed, Nitesh Gor, chairman of the new Hindu school’s governing body, confirmed this, when he told the press: “If we are going to continue to have faith schooling in this country it is unreasonable and discriminatory to deny just a handful of Hindu parents the choice that is already available to much larger numbers of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others.”

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “The Government tells us repeatedly that ‘faith schools’ will only be created where there is local demand. However, the consultations it carries out are disregarded when they don’t give the result that is required. It is baffling as to why this Government is so afraid of the churches and seems unable to say no to them. In the meantime, the letters keep rolling in from our members and others telling us of the way that church schools are upping the amount of religion in classes and using schools as recruiting grounds for their religion. It seems every day is Sunday School day in most church schools.”

05 September 2008