Secular Education Forum
The Secular Education Forum (SEF) provides expert and professional advice and opinion to the National Secular Society (NSS) on issues related to education and provides a forum for anyone with expertise in the intersection of education and secularism.
The SEF's main objective is to advocate the value of secularism/religious neutrality as a professional standard in education. The SEF welcomes supporters of all faiths and none. It provides expert support for the NSS working towards a secular education system free from religious privilege, proselytization, partisanship or discrimination.
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Education blogs and commentary
A selection of blogs and comment pieces on education and secularism. For education news from the NSS, please click here.
Helping the public shouldn’t mean pushing religion on people
Posted: Mon, 12th Jul 2021
A parliamentary group has removed provisions in its 'faith covenant' that prevent faith groups from proselytising when delivering public services. This leaves vulnerable people open to exploitation, says Megan Manson.
This article is available in audio format, as part of our Opinion Out Loud series.
Is it reasonable for councils to ask organisations delivering public services to do so without pushing religion on vulnerable people? Disappointingly, a parliamentary group no longer seems to think so.
One of the most important contributions of the all-party parliamentary group on faith and society was its 'faith covenant'. The faith covenant was established as an agreement between faith groups and local authorities, to lay out a set of principles that guide interactions between them and the general public. It helped to address the potential conflict of interests that can happen when religious organisations deliver public services. In the past, the NSS has publicly supported the faith covenant and recommended its use with public authorities.
One of the commitments for faith groups agreeing to the faith covenant was: "Serving equally all local residents seeking to access the public services they offer, without proselytising, irrespective of their religion, gender, marital status, race, ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation, mental capability, long term condition or disability".
This is a key part of the covenant. A common concern is that faith groups may discriminate against people of different religions and beliefs or LGBT+ identities in particular; the covenant explicitly protects against this.
Another common concern is that faith groups may try to evangelise to service users, which was forbidden by the "without proselytising" clause. That is, until now.
Around the beginning of this year, the APPG on faith and society quietly removed the words "without proselytising" from the covenant. As a result, the covenant offers no protection to the public against unwanted evangelism at all.
Minutes from the APPG's October meeting reveal that some faith groups opposed the "without proselytising" clause. Stephen Timms said faith groups in Southampton felt that "without proselytising" meant they "can't do any religious outreach work", while Rev Debbie Sellin said the clause was a "stumbling block for a couple of churches". This would suggest that these groups do in fact wish to proselytise to service users - something that the faith covenant was originally meant to prevent, and which demonstrates the need for an explicit non-proselytising clause.
The decision to remove "without proselytising" is a big step backwards, which has been taken primarily for the benefit of faith groups and not for the benefit of public service users. Surely the needs and welfare of the public, particularly vulnerable members of the public who are most likely to depend on these services, should be prioritised in any agreement between local authorities and service providers?
The problem with proselytising and public services
There are many religious organisations that gladly refrain from proselytising while helping the public. Last year the universities of Sheffield and Leeds published a report, Faith responses to modern slavery, which found several religious organisations working to tackle modern slavery have self-imposed safeguards that warn against discussing faith with clients. It concluded that all organisations in contact with potential survivors of modern slavery should implement the 'non-proselytisation clause' of the Human Trafficking Foundation Slavery and Trafficking Survivor Care Standards.
But not all religious groups abide by this. One such group is Azalea, which says it provides support to women involved in sex trafficking. Azalea is expanding: it registered as a charitable incorporated organisation last year in Luton, and appears to have opened a High Wycombe branch last month.
Azalea's work helping survivors of sex trafficking is a noble and important undertaking. Doubtless it had helped many individuals dealing with appalling circumstances. But some of Azalea's policies and methods are cause for concern.
Azalea's website says the organisation "was established in prayer" and that prayer is "essential for the fulfilment of the vision that we will see an end to commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking". It says prayer is "always offered" to the vulnerable sex-trafficked women and men its volunteers work with, and the prayer is "almost always accepted".
However well-intentioned this offer of prayer, one must question the extent to which Azalea's clients feel they can refuse the offer. Faith responses to modern slavery found some survivors who had sought help from religious organisations had experienced pressure to attend religious services because they felt it was a requirement of the support. Offering assistance to desperate people with 'religious strings attached' can cross the line into exploitation.
Azalea has received funding from public authorities, including the Bedfordshire Police & Crime Commissioner, and is partnered with Luton Borough Council. It's worth noting that Luton is one of six local authorities identified by the APPG on faith and society as interested in adopting the new faith covenant. If the council had adopted the previous covenant, it could easily rein in any desire to evangelise that partner organisations may have. But there is nothing to prevent this at all in the new covenant.
The key purpose of the faith covenant was to increase confidence around commissioning services from faith-based organisations. Removing the no-proselytising clause does the opposite. It can only undermine confidence in faith groups delivering public services.
Partnerships between local authorities and support groups, both religious and secular, can provide much needed support to the most vulnerable members of our communities. And we should expect the highest standards of ethics from any organisation that's working with local authorities to provide a public service. That must include an agreement from all parties not to exploit their position to try and gain converts or save souls through proselytising. When delivering services to the public, the priority should be the welfare and dignity of the public – and not the missionary objectives of faith groups.
Image by Godsgirl_madi from Pixabay.
Naz Shah’s argument on blasphemy should be rejected
Posted: Fri, 9th Jul 2021
The Labour MP has effectively called for a blasphemy law as she highlighted the "emotional harm" caused by depictions of Muhammad. Freedom of expression on religion mustn't be up for negotiation, says Chris Sloggett.
A speech in parliament by Labour MP Naz Shah has set tongues wagging on social media this week.
Addressing the current police and crime bill, Shah highlighted the government's argument that courts should be able to recognise the "emotional harm" caused by damage to statues and memorials. Her party is opposing the bill, so you might have thought she'd critique this argument. But instead she expanded on it, by drawing a link to the "emotional harm" caused by cartoons of Islam's prophet Muhammad.
After saying that for Muslims, "there is not a single thing in the world that we commemorate and honour more than our beloved prophet", Shah added that it causes "unbearable" emotional harm when "bigots and racists defame, slander or abuse" him.
She went on to criticise cartoons explicitly and ask whether there should be a "hierarchy of sentiments". Her implication was that religious figures such as Muhammad were being denied equal protection to secular ones such as Oliver Cromwell and Winston Churchill.
On Twitter she topped this off with the hashtag "#NotJustACartoon". Her speech has been shared thousands of times – including, approvingly, by some other politicians.
Her argument is worth listening to, not least because it helps to draw attention to the much stronger case in reverse. It shows that justifying clampdowns on expression on the basis that they cause "emotional harm" opens the door to various censorious demands, as the writer Timandra Harkness noted.
But there's also a significant distinction between the two acts which Shah referred to. It's not criminal damage to draw a cartoon. Damaging a physical object in a public space isn't equivalent to creating a likeness that offends someone's sentiments. Drawing a cartoon that mocks Muhammad doesn't infringe on a Muslim's right to revere him unless, for example, you put the cartoon on the door of a mosque or a private home. Shah's case isn't an argument for equality; it's that all mockery of Muhammad should be off limits, for everyone.
Much of the response to the recent Batley affair appeared to assume that Britain doesn't really have to worry about blasphemy taboos and laws any more. Shah's comments are a reminder that this complacency is misguided. Whether she wants an explicit blasphemy law, or just an implicit one, the result would be alarming.
Allowing people to criticise, critique and mock religion has been fundamental to human progress. If people can laugh at a religious figure, they can challenge or disbelieve them, and they can think for themselves. If they can't, by contrast, the fundamentalists' demands will keep coming, as the Batley saga and the killing of Samuel Paty have shown in recent months alone.
If you give up freedom of expression on religion, what other restrictions on this fundamental right do you accept? What stops someone using the taboo against depicting Muhammad to justify other forms of censorship? And if you hand away freedom of expression, what other rights are on the table?
The principled argument alone should be enough to defeat Shah's. But there's a risk that some in Britain see this issue purely as a tussle between competing communities. In recent years much of the response to rows over blasphemy has been marked by a patronising assumption that all Muslims are a monolithic bloc who will be offended. (Ironically there's a similarity between the arguments of parts of the multiculturalist left and those of the far right in that regard, although they differ on the way to respond.)
This is also a significant error. Restricting free speech harms minorities within Muslim communities, who may question or challenge aspects of their faith or wish to renounce it entirely. It empowers reactionary Muslim 'community leaders', and undermines the case for human rights in countries where reactionary forms of Islam are in power.
As Times columnist Matthew Parris put it during the recent Batley affair: "Who are the bullied here? The imams who cry 'persecution' because they think their version of Muhammad has been dishonoured? Or the youth at Batley Grammar who is beginning to question the cruel and rigid certainties he has heard in the mosque?"
A cohesive democratic society that values the rights of all its citizens should never accept the idea that any religious figure can be above criticism. The case should be made and remade: freedom of expression on religion isn't up for negotiation.
Schools must be supported against religious bullies
Posted: Wed, 7th Jul 2021
Comments from Ofsted's chief inspector highlight the need to help schools resist efforts to shut down teaching which reactionary religious groups deem controversial, says Alastair Lichten.
In a recent speech at the annual Festival of Education conference Amanda Spielman, head of Ofsted, touched on issues with activism in schools. While acknowledging the many positive contributions of activism to education, she criticised "the militant kind" which leads to "confrontational approaches both outside and inside schools".
She went on to talk about the impact on children having to "cross what amount to picket lines outside their school because one group's religious beliefs – protected by law – sit uncomfortably with teaching about another group's sexuality – also protected by law".
We've seen this play out with protests outside school gates and misinformation campaigns organised against relationships and sex education (RSE). In Batley a mob forced a religious education (RE) teacher into hiding over a lesson on blasphemy - and reactionaries have since hounded the Labour candidate during the recent by-election with homophobic abuse, largely because of her support of inclusive RSE.
It's important to cut through the euphemism and talk about the specific subjects and topics that reactionary religious groups are organising around. They want schools to uphold taboos against LGBT identities, contraceptives, sex and blasphemy. They use euphemisms such as protecting children – a longstanding dog whistle used to frame LGBT people as a threat and talk the language of community engagement – when they want to be treated as gatekeepers regardless of what the wider community may want.
Currently it is conservative Islamic groups leading the charge, but this is not confined to one group. Anti-LGBT Christian groups have supported these protests. How long before other religious groups start mobilising on their own pet issues? Some white parents object to schools teaching about racism and colonialism. Some Hindu groups are bitterly opposed to caste discrimination being mentioned in A-level coverage of Hinduism. Where religious authorities control schools, very little outside pressure is needed to enforce such taboos.
The number of schools that will have religious mobs baying at their gates may be relatively small, but many more will be intimidated into silence. We've seen these tactics and the effects they have before. In 2011 researchers at Penn State University published a study showing that only 13% of US science teachers were sympathetic to creationist beliefs, but the real threat to scientific literacy was the 60% who avoided teaching about evolution to avoid conflict or controversy.
RE students tend to be particularly interested in discussions about the conflicts between religious beliefs and wider societal values. Examiners have told me that questions about religious objections to abortion or providing services to LGBT couples are among the most popular options chosen in exams as they are perceived as more relevant than scriptural questions.
If you want to discuss contemporary religious issues, then I can think of very few more pertinent than debates over offending Islamic blasphemy taboos. Any student passionate about RE would love to debate the lines between free speech, religious criticism, and needless offence. After Batley, many won't get the chance. I expect many teachers will be quietly putting that particular lesson plan in the bin.
I suspect that few teachers or schools will actively support Islamic, or other religious, blasphemy taboos or homophobia, but many will seek to avoid this conflict. There are currently structural issues of religious privilege within RE and RSE which encourage this strategy for schools, and which encourage religious parents to demand concessions.
Religious education
Our system of religious education assumes that religious groups should be gatekeepers and producer communities - meaning they should decide, through the system of SACREs and their dominance of the market in resources, how religions are covered.
Good teaching about religion should challenge prejudice against and between people with differing beliefs. Challenging discrimination is not always consistent with protecting everyone's religious feelings. An academic study in 2018 showed that most RE teachers see it as their job to address prejudice by prioritising positive views of religion over critical exploration. Evidence from the same authors, reported last week, suggests this holds regardless of teachers' personal beliefs. This positivity bias primes teachers to back off from topics that might make religions look bad. A lot of discussion of the Batley affair in RE communities had an underlying suspicion of the teacher's motives given this potential.
Relationships and sex education
Current government guidance allows schools to teach RSE from a religious perspective. This was designed to appease religious objectors. It allows faith schools to continue to teach the subject in a discriminatory way. This creates the unreasonable expectation that content will be restricted on religious grounds. All RSE should be age appropriate, but this is poorly defined and is used by religious groups to try to push any coverage of LGBT issues out, particularly in primary schools. The current guidance opens the door to this: just this week, Ofsted has said schools want it to be clearer.
The consultation requirements in the guidance and legislation on RSE are intended to help schools form a partnership with parents, understand cultural perspectives and concerns, and tweak their planned content to be most effective. However, these are exploited by religious groups whose real target and demand is getting rid of RSE. They will always demand more consultation and more concessions, not out of a genuine desire to improve the subject, but to sap schools' time and energy to try and intimidate them into giving in.
In both subjects, guidance should make clear that schools are not expected to conform to the prejudices of parents or religious gatekeepers.
We also need a wider cultural change, so that teachers feel confident delivering the curriculum even when some pupils, or their families, may find it challenging or controversial. Parents and communities need to know that although their views will be heard, they do not get a veto. When covering controversial cultural issues teachers need to be given some benefit of the doubt, even when they don't handle an issue perfectly, and they need to know they will be supported.
Image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com.
The Church of England’s offensive in FE colleges must be resisted
Posted: Mon, 5th Jul 2021
This piece was originally published in FE Week and is republished here with kind permission.
C of E proposals to increase its influence in FE colleges have little to do with education and more to do with reversing its declining numbers among young people, say Chris Higgins and Keith Sharpe.
The Church of England is on a missionary offensive in our FE colleges. This is the thrust of a recent report, Vocation, Transformation and Hope: a vision for the Church of England's engagement with further education, fronted by the bishop of Winchester, Tim Dakin.
How is it that the "bishop for higher and further education" can produce a report that has so little to say about the realities of education and so much to say about how the church might increase its membership?
The report rather gives the game away by acknowledging that the aim of engaging with FE colleges is to "build a younger and more diverse church" and that "colleges can, especially, be a way to engage with what is often a missing generation… There is genuine potential here to help revitalise the local church in the long term."
It appears the Church of England views FE colleges as a potential source of new recruits, rather than the pluralistic communities of learners and educators that they are.
The lord bishop of Durham confirmed this strategy, stating in the recent Queen's Speech debate: "We as a church recognise that we must become younger and more diverse. Engaging in further education needs to be at the core of what we do."
He added that the church is "committed to an ongoing working partnership with the secretary of state and the government to explore these issues together".
The report laments the fact that, unlike HE, no Christian church now operates an FE institution, and suggests the establishment of a church "FE Colleges Group".
Even more worryingly, this latest report follows a report published in 2020 called Faith in Higher Education – A Church of England vision, also under Bishop Dakin, which states that the church's approach to further and higher education is theological, not educational.
That report declares that education and wisdom are achieved by "aligning all our ways – our thinking, acting, belonging – with those of God".
Most strikingly, it adds "sustained theological attention is needed on the distinct questions of the content of any particular discipline or field, the methodologies with which these are examined and interpreted, and the curriculum through which it is taught".
In the 21st century, no educational institution should be subject to the constraints of theological doctrine.
One proposal being considered by the Church of England is that "each diocese should engage with further education and sixth-form colleges in its strategic planning and an appropriate member of the bishop's staff should have responsibility for linking diocesan strategy with FE and sixth-form college activity".
But fewer than one per cent of college students are members of their particular church. Meanwhile, governors of FE colleges are charged with developing an independent strategy for the benefit of all their students.
Another proposal in the report is to provide house-for-duty posts and to "reimagine chaplaincy provision". This neglects the fact that FE colleges already have a cadre of professionally qualified and committed staff who work diligently to enhance the welfare and wellbeing of students of all backgrounds, abilities and aspirations.
Support for all students' wellbeing is fundamental to the pluralistic life of our FE colleges and the communities they serve.
While, of course, most individual chaplains are well-intentioned, a "cuckoo-in-the-nest" chaplaincy whose first loyalty is towards a particular church would privilege a very small minority of staff and students. This would undermine every college's purpose of building a community in which people of all faiths or none have equal opportunity.
The potential for conflict between the doctrinal beliefs of chaplains – for example, on same-sex marriage, other faiths or LGBT+ rights – and the inclusive support provided by the professional pastoral support teams in FE would also be ever present.
Support for further education from any source is, of course, to be welcomed, but the Church of England's latest proposals have little to do with education and skills and much to do with reversing its own declining numbers amongst young people.
That's why the specific proposals in this report must be resisted.
Image: © sirtravelalot/Shutterstock.com.
The ugly Batley and Spen campaign showed the risks of indulging religious identity politics
Posted: Fri, 2nd Jul 2021
Voters and politicians who value social cohesion and basic democratic principles should reject the trend of pandering to religious tribalism, says Chris Sloggett.
The recent events at Batley Grammar School are well-documented, but still shocking to recount. A loud group of intolerant Muslims gathered at the gates of a school demanding a teacher's dismissal because they objected to a resource he used in class. The school suspended the teacher and issued a grovelling apology. The teacher faced threats, and soon afterwards two of his colleagues were also suspended.
A local investigation has found that the resource which the teacher showed - a cartoon of Islam's prophet Muhammad - was not used with any ill intent. The teacher was nominally reinstated. But he and his colleagues can't return to work because they fear they could be attacked. Meanwhile the investigation has effectively enforced a blasphemy taboo on the school by saying the cartoon, or similar ones, shouldn't be used again.
The teacher at the centre of the row has been driven out of the area and into hiding. The mob that hounded him has got what it wanted. Other schools around the country will have taken note.
And the politicians have moved on. The Department for Education has called on parents to accept the outcome of the local investigation. The department and others have presented this as if it's some kind of reasonable compromise. But anyone who cares about teachers' freedom to do their jobs without facing intimidation and threats - on this issue or any other - should say what this is: a meek surrender to demands for censorship.
When the protests first broke out many politicians and commentators wrung their hands. Some called for calm, but the message was often that the main concern lay in the minutiae of a handful of teachers' decisions about how to present a particular lesson in one school.
The grubby Batley and Spen by-election, which limped to a close this week, helped to highlight the price to be paid for this. When the issue came up during the campaign, mainstream candidates' responses smacked of fear, self-interest and short-termist thinking. They either doggedly avoided it or offered responses which were weak to the point of meaninglessness, as a piece from Batley by Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday highlighted this weekend. Meanwhile George Galloway spotted an opportunity to weaponise the issue to try to win over some reactionary Muslim voters, saying the school had "absolutely no right" to use the cartoon.
Did the politicians think their positions were right, or did they just not want to upset a perceived bloc vote? Either way, this collective wall of silence was alarmingly predictable. It's now a standard tactic to treat large swathes of voters primarily as members of various religious 'communities', and to appeal to them through the gatekeepers who claim to speak for them.
But this approach sends the message that religious identity groups can make increasingly unreasonable demands and nobody will dare to say no to them. In Batley, there seems to have been a widespread unspoken agreement that freedom of expression - the most important freedom which citizens in a democracy enjoy - could be treated as a commodity and signed away for electoral convenience.
Politicians should beware where the multi-communal game leads. If they rely on religious identity politics to shore up their support, they'll come under pressure to extend more privileges to particular religious groups. Others will organise along competing identitarian lines, or grow bewildered that politicians appear uninterested in them. The principle that we all enjoy equal citizenship and that politicians should seek to serve all of our interests will be further frayed.
There will also be fertile ground for bad actors of various stripes. The Batley and Spen campaign was marred by inter-communal tensions and intimidatory tactics, including homophobic intimidation aimed at Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater. More moderate and reasonable voices, such as a group of Muslim women who rejected the authority of a "loud minority" of Muslim men this week, faced an uphill battle to make themselves heard. Several far right candidates also spotted an opportunity to advance their agendas.
This ugly campaign should be a prompt to pause and reconsider. Indulging religious tribalism is risky and unsustainable. Voters and politicians who value social cohesion and basic democratic principles should unite against it.
Image: © Ian S, via geograph [CC BY-SA 2.0; cropped]
