An inclusive Britain starts with inclusive schools

Keeping religion and state education separate is the best way of ensuring schools promote free inquiry, equality and inclusivity, argues Stephen Evans.

Last week the government published its 'inclusive Britain strategy', setting out a range of actions to tackle racial and ethnic disparities and promote fairness.

A glaring issue overlooked is that of faith schools. Robust evidence shows that faith-based education builds discrimination into the system and undermines social cohesion by segregating pupils on religious, ethnic, racial and social grounds.

A third of state-funded schools across Britain are faith schools. The vast majority are Christian, and many of these operate discriminatory admissions policies. The impact of this is being keenly felt by families in Liverpool, where parents are struggling to access local schools, and youngsters are facing long journeys because nearby places are reserved for practicing Christian families.

Dr Amina Elmi from the Granby Somali Women's Group has been lobbying for a change in schools' admissions, arguing that admission policies are stopping "people from a certain community - from a certain race or faith - from getting into the schools in their locale".

The problem is acknowledged by local councillor Tom Logan, cabinet member for schools, who points to "a cluster of schools with a religious element to their admissions policies so if you're not Catholic or from the Church of England or you don't want a faith-based education, you'll find it difficult to get a place". Many parents up and down the country will have faced a similar situation.

The government's inclusive Britain strategy is focussed on addressing racial and ethnic disparities, but it's clear that a broader review is needed to address the myriad ways faith schools at best fail to foster, and at worst actively undermine, inclusiveness.

But there are encouraging signs that an increasing number of local people are willing to call out discriminatory admissions and make some noise. One such group is Fair Schools for Oldham, a group of parents, teachers, and local residents who got organised after they realised their new "multi-faith, multi-ethnic, inclusive school" was going to reserve 50% of its places for children of families that practice a faith – meaning half of its places will be closed to many local children. The group says it wants everyone to have equal access to good quality local state-funded schools, "regardless of their social class, religious faith, ethnic origin, or postcode".

Parents in Wigan are also fighting the unfairness of faith-based education. The council's plans to close a community school there will leave many families with no option other than a faith school. This in an area where the high prevalence of faith schools means 90% of families already face high or extreme restrictions on the choice of a non-faith school. Three in ten families across the country face similar restrictions.

Even when children are given a place in a faith school with a religious outlook they don't share, the faith ethos permeates all aspects of school life, making it far from an inclusive environment for many. Even non-faith-based academies and community schools are under a legal obligation to provide a daily act of broadly Christian worship, further undermining inclusivity. The only schools that do a good job of holding inclusive assemblies are those that ignore the law and omit the worship.

But the inclusivity problems in our schools go further than alienating children from different religion or belief backgrounds.

The disinviting of a gay author from a state-funded Catholic faith school in Croydon this month highlights how religious control of schools can negatively impact on inclusivity for LGBT pupils and families too.

The reason given by the Archdiocese of Southwark for cancelling the visit of award-winning children's author Simon James Green was that his representation of LGBT characters and support for LGBT rights was in conflict with their religious ethos.

The diocese says: "At the heart of every Catholic school sits the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Catholic Church." Herein lies the problem. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "homosexual acts" are "acts of grave depravity", "intrinsically disordered" and "contrary to the natural law." Our publicly funded schools shouldn't be agents of religious dogma.

The National Secular Society has long argued the requirement for faith schools to teach RSE and PSHE in accordance with their religious ethos creates significant tension with their duties under the Equality Act – and provides cover to marginalise LGBT pupils and stigmatise same-sex relationships.

NSS research revealed 77% of secondary faith schools in England are delivering Relationship & Sex Education according to the teachings of the school's religious ethos, rather than in an impartial manner. Many Catholic schools' RSE policies often explicitly denigrated same-sex relationships, or otherwise marginalised or excluded discussions of LGBT issues and representation of LGBT individuals.

Chair of the Catholic news weekly The Tablet Mike Craven says the treatment of Simon James Green "reinforces public perceptions of Catholics as prejudiced and Catholic schools places where teachers are second-guessed by bishops and bureaucrats and laity are ignored and marginalised." He says it will lead taxpayers and politicians to question why hundreds of millions of pounds of public money are being spent to allow a religious institution to reinforce public prejudice against a vulnerable group of young people." Quite.

He questions whether the prohibition on the physical expression of love outside heterosexual marriage is still tenable. That's a matter for the Catholic faithful and the Church. Religions will always have their internal theological disputes. These should be played out in churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, not schools.

There's no shortage of people who claim that religion is a force for good. And in many ways, it can be. But that's not the whole story. It can also be intolerant, divisive and discriminatory.

State education can play a vital role in creating a fairer, more open and more inclusive society. To achieve that, the schools we all fund should be equally welcoming to children of all religion or belief backgrounds, ethnicities and sexual orientations.

An inclusive Britain begins with inclusive schools. We need an education system that, at its core, promotes free inquiry, equality and inclusivity. Organised religion's continuing role in state education is a glaring impediment to that. That's why religion and state education must be kept separate.

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Religious selection is only part of the problem with faith schools

Ending religious discrimination in faith school admissions is an important first step – but it will not undo all the harms caused by faith schools, says Alastair Lichten.

It's easy to see why religious selection in admissions dominates the debate over faith schools. It is perceived by many as their most obvious and egregious problem. It is a form of direct and open discrimination that would be unlawful and unacceptable in almost any other public context, and contributes to the problems of middle-class parents 'gaming the system'.

Public opinion is clear on this matter. Even many supportive of, or more ambivalent about, faith schools strongly oppose religious selection, making it unpopular across all religion and belief groups. Support for religious selection of pupils is such a minority view that defenders of the practice are forced to rely on obfuscation and exaggerated claims about how difficult a transition to open admissions would be.

Supporters and opponents of faith schools are often united in seeing open admissions as a stepping stone (or a slippery slope, depending on perspective) towards a fully secular or community ethos education system. On the other hand, some supporters of faith schools see open admissions as a necessary compromise to shore up their continuation.

There are clear benefits to ending faith based selection in schools that extend beyond ending discrimination and segregation on the basis of religion or belief. An end to religious selection would reduce associated forms of social selection. Faith schools would gradually become more representative of their local communities. With a more pluralistic intake, they could be forced to moderate their approach and to take greater account of those who do not share their faith.

But open admissions wouldn't solve all the problems with faith schools. While open admissions would give families a fairer choice when faith schools are oversubscribed, what about where they are undersubscribed or not wanted? What about the hundreds of thousands of families across England with little or no choice but a faith school locally?

Open admissions may make oversubscribed faith schools, particularly CofE or Catholic schools, more representative of their communities, and therefore reduce many forms of segregation. However, other minority faith schools which are even more unpopular with families from other backgrounds could remain highly segregated. For example, the 50% cap on religious selection in new faith-based academies has been less effective in encouraging integration in Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish schools. Northern Ireland shows religious segregation can be driven by social attitudes and exclusionary practices, rather than direct religious selection.

What's more, open admissions alone don't make a school inclusive when its religious education, school assemblies, relationships and sex education (RSE), teacher selection and inspections regime are all organised around an exclusive religious ethos. New faith school proposals often point at the ability for pupils from other faith backgrounds to gain places to deflect from all other issues of inclusion.

Faith schools also use open admissions to argue that parents attending such schools - often their only practical option - are accepting all aspects of the religious ethos, and should not complain.

For politicians overestimating the popularity of faith schools, supporting open admissions feels like a safer option. It makes sense to form broad coalitions to tackle the specific issue of admissions, and work together to mitigate harms of faith schools and make incremental improvements. A policy of open admissions would be simpler than working out the details to get rid of faith schools, and reformers may wish to temporarily sidestep such questions.

But limiting criticisms of faith schools in pursuit of some allies can have long term problems. For example, campaigners seeking to introduce statutory RSE in different parts of the UK understandably sought to work with all schools, including faith schools. However, such campaigns often downplayed the problems with how RSE is delivered in many faith schools, and in their haste to celebrate a victory, have robbed attention from these problems.

This isn't to say that the direct benefits of ending faith selection wouldn't be significant, or that the moral imperative to end such discrimination isn't clear.

Achieving a secular and inclusive education system free from religious privilege, discrimination, or control, will be a lengthy process. Ending the ability of faith schools to religiously discriminate in admissions is only the first step.

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Remove religious gatekeepers from school admissions

Faith-based selection forces families' religiosity to be assessed, compels conformity, and undermines everyone's freedom of belief, says Alastair Lichten.

Religious discrimination in school admissions is opposed by people right across the religious and political spectrum. It is often the number one objection to faith schools and regarded by many as their most egregious aspect.

Faith-based admissions all require some way for parents to get proof or validation of their religion. This means that religious clerics play the role of gatekeepers to publicly funded schools. The circumstances in which these gatekeepers grant approval, their discretion, and the level of religious activity required varies widely. Because the law allows discriminatory policies, technical objections are often limited to challenging the basis of this endorsement or validation, or the consistency of their application.

The most obvious downside to faith-based admissions is that it builds discrimination into our schools system. The social economic selection resulting from faith-based admissions is well documented. The indirect effects are less obvious, particularly in minority faith schools. When coupled with a strong social pressure to attend faith schools, onerous and extremely intrusive admissions policies can be used by religious leaders to exert control over 'their' communities. Even where the intrusion is less direct, religious leaders are aware of the leverage church attendance and religious sign-off requirements give them in trying to rustle up worshipers.

This leads to widespread gaming of the system, principally by better off parents. Single parents, those who regularly work at weekends, low-income families, those with language barriers, disabled or seriously ill members, and those alienated by religious institutions, are all less likely to be able to maintain and document religious attendance. This could include many people within those religions.

A lot of discourse around such practices focuses on blaming 'pushy parents', rather than addressing the desperate situation where many families can't otherwise access a local school, or having to deal with the challenges of a socially segregated system.

Freedom of religion or belief demands that people get to determine their own religious identity. We generally take a dim view of anyone trying to dictate whether someone else is a 'true' Christian, Muslim or atheist. There are few circumstances where we need to declare our religious identity to the state, and none where it is subject to religious tests. One does not need a form or approval from their priest, imam, rabbi or other cleric, to mark their religious identity on the census; equality monitoring forms are not accompanied by a quiz, assessment or attendance register.

COVID-19 and lockdowns have forced some faith schools to temporarily abandon worship attendance as a selection criteria. Some schools have found other ways of assessing applicants' religiosity. But such religious self-identification is incompatible with selective admissions. Self-identification may reduce religious discrimination and the better off's ability to game the system. But it still leaves us with a two tier system, where those willing to at least feign or accept religion would always have more school choices.

Limited government efforts to address the potential corruption and favouritism in the system, have focussed on reducing the discretion granted to individual gatekeepers in admissions policies by codifying the conditions under which they should endorsement religious applicants. But that can have the counter effect of encouraging schools to demand even stricter religious attendance or declarations. And it does nothing to address the fundamental injustice of religious practice dictating school options.

By far the best solution would be to end the religious discrimination by removing exemptions to the Equality Act that allow faith schools to select pupils in this way. Any administrative hurdles would be more than worth the practical benefits, and moral imperative of ending state sanctioned discrimination.

Removing religious gatekeepers would make the school application process much simpler. It would end intrusive assessments, no one would be compelled to attend religious services or follow religious instructions. It would promote religious freedom, giving people the right to decide their own beliefs and identity, and how they want to worship – or whether they want to at all. It certainly shouldn't be a prerequisite to attend a publicly funded school.

NSS urges government to keep cap on faith-based admissions

Community cohesion and rights of children must come before religious interests, NSS tells schools minister