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.
Any serious counter-extremism strategy should consider religious charities
Posted: Mon, 15th Mar 2021
As a commission calls for action to tackle hateful extremism, Megan Manson says changes in the charity sector – including legal reform – would be both helpful and compatible with fundamental liberal principles.
This article is available in audio format, as part of our Opinion Out Loud series.
Last month the Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) published a report reviewing current strategies for dealing with 'hateful extremism'. The commission is keen to marginalise activity that intends to advance a religious "supremacist ideology" by creating a climate conducive to hate crime or violence, or to attempt to erode fundamental rights and freedoms.
Anyone wading into this territory faces a delicate balancing act. Trying to legislate against extremism risks encroaching on freedom of expression. But it's also reasonable for policy makers to seek to disempower those who push supremacism and undermine liberal democracy.
One approach that would achieve a balance between cracking down on extremism and maintaining civil liberities is to tackle the exploitation of the charity sector by extremists. Among the many issues identified as a barrier to counter extremism, the report found that the Charity Commission, which registers and regulates charities, faces "significant operational challenges" in confronting extremism in charities. So this seems like a good place to start - there's no good reason why lax charity laws should give tax breaks and official recognition to organisations which push extremist ideologies.
One charity highlighted in the report is Islamic Research Foundation International (IRFI), which was also featured in the National Secular Society's 2019 'For the public benefit?' report on religious charities. Until 2019 one of its trustees was Zakir Naik, an Islamic preacher who was denied entry to the UK in 2010 due to his extremist views. IRFI finances Peace TV, which Ofcom took off the air in 2019 following multiple breaches of the broadcasting code for hate speech and inciting murder.
After the NSS raised repeated concerns, the Charity Commission finally intervened last year and appointed an interim manager to "consider the future viability" of IRFI.
IRFI has existed as a registered charity since 2007. Why did it take so long for the Charity Commission to take action against a charity that clearly isn't serving a public benefit?
According to the Commission for Countering Extremism, the Charity Commission "faced difficulty" to automatically bar Naik as trustee because his extremist actions "do not come under the scope for disqualification". It is ludicrous that a person who is barred from entering the UK can nevertheless operate a UK charity. The report suggests creating a legal framework dedicated to countering hateful extremism, which could help the Charity Commission in barring unsuitable trustees.
But there is a more fundamental issue in charity law that leaves the door open to extremists looking to abuse charitable status. And that is the privileging of religious charities.
IRFI lists its first charitable object as "the advancement of the faith and religious practices of Islam". It is one of thousands of registered charities that exist for the recognised charitable purpose of "the advancement of religion".
As the NSS argued in For the public benefit, an irreconcilable tension exists between the charitable purpose of "the advancement of religion", and the requirement for all charities to serve a public benefit. In many cases, religious charities offer no demonstrable public benefit at all that would justify the tax breaks and other perks of charitable status.
And in some cases, as evidenced by IRFI, religious charities cause harm. IRFI is just the tip of the iceberg. The NSS has referred a number of charities to the Charity Commission for extremist or hateful content promoted or signposted on their websites. Islamic Centre Leicester, Bolton Central Islamic Society and The Preston Muslim Cultural Centre all hosted or linked to content that promoted the killing of gay people or people who leave Islam.
And earlier this year, we raised concerns about the Ghamidi Centre of Islamic Communication, which registered as recently as in December. This charity had lectures on its website calling homosexuality a disease, comparing gay people to murderers, and saying it is acceptable for a husband to "punish" his wife if she challenges his authority.
Concerns about extremism have arisen in charities of other religions too. In November 2019 the NSS reported ten charities belonging to the Christadelphian sect of Christianity for website content including implicitly condoning the death penalty for homosexuals and Wiccans and stating that women should be subservient to men. One of the charities was registered as recently as 2019.
Most of the extremist content that the NSS reported was thankfully removed. But this 'whack-a-mole' approach to tackling extremism in the charity sector is unsustainable and inefficient. It does not address the extremism that may be promoted beyond charities' websites – in sermons at places of worship, for example. And it does not prevent organisations that promote extremist messages from registering as charities in the first place.
Every one of the charities listed above exists primarily to promote religion. And that is precisely what they are doing – they are promoting extremist religious ideas. The assumption in law that religion is somehow inherently beneficial, and that 'advancing religion' should therefore entitle an organisation to charitable status, ignores the fact that many religious teachings promote ideas that are reasonably regarded by 21st century UK society as extremist and hateful.
The Commission for Countering Extremism's report has identified a pertinent problem and outlined some helpful measures which could help tackle it – including assisting the Charity Commission in its role of weeding out unsuitable activity in charities. But to tackle extremism in the charity sector effectively, this needs to be accompanied by a thorough refresh of the laws that determine what is and isn't a charity.
Updating charity law to remove "the advancement of religion" would not revoke the charitable status of religious organisations that do genuine good – for example, the many religious charities that run food banks, homeless shelters and other services that assist poor and vulnerable people – because these activities can be listed under another charitable purpose.
But it would be a big step in preventing our charity sector from being exploited by those who want to undermine our democratic values of equality and human rights in the name of religious extremism.
Image: Dr Zakir Naik, via Wikimedia Commons, © Maapu [CC BY-2.0] (cropped)
Faith-based school admissions pave the way for sexist and unreasonable demands. It’s time to end them
Posted: Fri, 5th Mar 2021
An adjudicator's ruling has exposed the outrageous requirements a state-funded faith school places on pupils and their families. This shows the need to end faith-based discrimination in admissions, says Megan Manson.
Allowing state schools to prioritise children whose family belong to a particular religion is a bad idea. Using faith-based admissions criteria leads to segregation, unfairness and inequality. If it weren't for extensive exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 designed to accommodate faith schools it would certainly be unlawful.
Another upshot of allowing faith schools to pick and choose children according to religion is the proliferation of lengthy and complex admissions arrangements. For example, it's not uncommon for Catholic schools to prioritise children with Catholic baptism certificates, then children who are preparing to be baptised into Catholicism, then children with parents of other Christian denominations, then children from families of other religions, and finally any other children who don't fit into these categories (i.e. those from nonreligious families).
This is ridiculous enough. But this is by no means the limit to how outrageous school admissions can be. As a recent admissions tribunal decision demonstrates, allowing faith schools to apply their own faith-based criteria can lead to truly extraordinary requirements placed on prospective families and children.
In February the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA), which decides whether or not schools are complying with the Schools Admissions Code, found a multitude of problems in the admission arrangements of Beis Yaakov Jewish High School. Beis Yaakov is an all-girls faith school located in Salford and has been state-funded since 2005.
The catalogue of issues identified by the OSA in Beis Yaakov's admissions arrangements include:
- Specifying dress codes for pupils that were not sufficiently "objective", for example, requiring pupils to conform to "the ideas of modesty and the true dignity of a Charedi Jewish girl".
- Requiring fathers of pupils to be a member of a Charedi ('ultra-Orthodox') synagogue. Because only men whose mothers are Jewish can usually join such synagogues, the OSA determined that this requirement is contrary to the School Admissions Code and to equalities legislation. The OSA also said the "understanding" that members of synagogues will make "regular voluntary contributions" meant this requirement fell foul of the prohibition on giving priority to children on the basis of financial support parents may give to religious authorities associated with a school.
- Using a panel of rabbis appointed by the local synagogue to settle disputes regarding the religiosity or Jewish status of pupils. The OSA said that it was "inappropriate" for a case to be referred to a religious institution for a decision affecting a pupil's admission to a school based on anything other than what is set out in the admission arrangements.
- Requiring parents seeking faith-based priority to provide contact details of two Charedi 'referees'. The OSA said this was inappropriate because it may breach data protection laws and render the school's admissions system "susceptible to abuse".
The deviations from the admissions code identified by the OSA are striking in themselves. But what is perhaps more shocking is the elements in Beis Yaakov's admissions criteria that the OSA did not criticise.
For example, the OSA did not object to the fact that the dress code imposed on prospective pupils and their mothers is both sexist and unreasonable. It specifies that mothers and girls "will dress at all times in accordance with the strictest standards of Tznius (modesty)", which includes prohibiting "figure hugging dresses", "very brightly coloured" clothing and clothing made from "trendy" fabrics. Additionally, mothers must completely cover their hair "at all times", sleeves "must cover the elbows at all times", and tights "should be worn at all times and it should be apparent that they are being worn".
Such outrageous demands might belong in a Victorian etiquette book. They certainly do not belong in the admissions criteria of a 21st century state school. And yet the only objection given by the OSA is that they might be difficult to understand because they aren't "objective".
It doesn't end there. The OSA's report mentioned that the admissions arrangements require families to strictly limit their children's access to all forms of communication including cinema, theatre and written material. The OSA not only fails to question these extreme restrictions the school places on the private lives of its pupils and it families – it appears to approve them. It gives the example of the requirement that "school aged children do not watch television" as one that is capable of being judged objectively, and is therefore acceptable.
This isn't the first time the OSA has given a free pass to state-funded faith school admissions arrangements that are sexist and controlling. In 2018 the OSA considered a case relating to Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School in London. The adjudicator effectively ruled that the school was not breaching the school admissions code by requiring families not to wear leather or lycra, access the internet or use online entertainment.
It is perplexing that the OSA can seemingly do nothing to stop a state school from imposing admissions codes that reinforce gender inequality and force parents to prevent their children from taking part in everyday society by placing severe restrictions on what they see, hear, read and wear. Indeed, both would seem contrary to the welfare and educational needs of children growing up in 21st century Britain.
But allowing any school, even if it has a less severe religious ethos, to use faith-based admissions arrangements sets a precedent for more extreme faith schools to set extremely exclusive criteria. If we accept the premise that state schools can be religious communities, which decide who can attend based on religious criteria, we make it far harder to challenge even patently ridiculous religious rules.
The issue should also cause us all to question the very existence of state-funded faith schools in the first place. Despite being funded by taxpayers from all religion and belief backgrounds, it is plain from their admissions arrangements that schools like Beis Yaakov are not intended for the whole community. They are intended only for an insular religious minority willing to obey, and make their children obey, the draconian rules of religious leaders.
While every person should have the right to choose this lifestyle, the state should not be expected to facilitate and promote it. And the state certainly should not direct our taxes to schools that cater only to this lifestyle and exclude anyone who challenges or rejects it.
Joint campuses are a cop out in efforts to tackle sectarianism
Posted: Wed, 3rd Mar 2021
As the Scottish government confirms funding for a new joint campus between a non-denominational school and a Catholic one, Neil Barber says ministers should instead seek a unified, secular education system.
In Neilston, a village in East Renfrewshire, £30m funding has just been confirmed to build a new school campus by the end of this year. This will 'join' non-denominational Neilston Primary and Catholic St Thomas' Primary on one site.
Local people are understandably pleased by this investment, but with each school retaining its own head teachers, parent-teacher councils and as yet unclear religious customs or lack of them, is this good news for attempts to tackle sectarianism in Scotland?
A few months ago I was on a panel with religious leaders giving evidence to the Scottish parliament's Justice Committee about the flawed new hate crime bill. We were asked for suggestions as to how sectarianism could be tackled other than by the policing of hate crime. In response I said that all children should be educated together in integrated, religiously neutral schools.
To the nodding of the other religious leaders, the director of the Catholic Parliamentary Office, Anthony Horan, assured us that children were not taught sectarianism on a Sunday morning by their priest or minister. Of course children will rarely learn sectarian animosity from older people in a church setting, but put them in the jungle of the playground where they are desperate for acceptance and tribal belonging, and you have a whole new social petri dish.
Several joint campuses, which bring schools with different identities together in the same place, have opened or been proposed in recent years. Some policy makers in Northern Ireland also appear to have taken an interest in the idea.
In some cases the campuses may bring a feeling of small improvement to the status quo. When I researched the new school in Neilston for example, a journalist from the Barrhead News told me she'd heard the schools had already celebrated a joint Christmas art fayre. What's not to like about that?
However, there can also be significant drawbacks. A school which emphasises your differences from children whose parents are of another religion or who have none is bad enough, but imagine a school where the otherness of your fellow pupils is defined daily at close quarters!
A few years ago, plans in North Lanarkshire for several joint campus schools caused panic amongst Catholic officials who feared that "sharing of facilities like staffrooms will erode the Catholic ethos of a school". Politicians who supported the plans argued for the economics but also privately hoped for some softening of the sectarian divide sadly common in some parts of Scotland.
Despite this obvious benefit there was much concern about the free display of crucifixes, and separate entrances and facilities, including toilets, for teachers in the Catholic part of the school. Michael McGrath, who was the director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service at the time, vehemently denied that segregated schooling led to sectarianism, strangely claiming: "That's nonsense. Catholic schooling promotes diversity." Could it be that joint campuses often simply entrench segregation under one roof?
Remember that we are talking about the religious beliefs of parents here. Children are too young to understand the reasons for the separation they would experience, and have rights of their own. Articles 12 and 14 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child promote young people forming their own opinions about religious belief. Parents are of course entitled privately to discuss their personal religious views and choices with their children but these delineations should not be promoted in schools and certainly not tax funded schools.
Despite the well-meaning hope of many that building joint campuses is a 'step in the right direction', they are no substitute for all children learning and playing together in religiously neutral schools.
Even if politicians realise this, they have yet to wean themselves off religious block votes. The churches' power has been entrenched in Scotland's education system for far too long. Ministers should stand up to it.
Image: Ben Molyneux/Shutterstock.com.
NI’s education review is a golden chance to take a stand for inclusion
Posted: Thu, 25th Feb 2021
Alastair Lichten says a review of education provision in Northern Ireland must be willing to challenge entrenched religious interests to deliver on ambitions for a more efficient and inclusive system.
Voters in Northern Ireland consistently rate education as a high priority. This was reflected in the prominence given to an independent review on education in the 2020 deal which restored devolution. Despite areas where NI schools perform extremely well, every challenge the system faces has its roots in, or is exacerbated by, the sectarian division.
The review will consider "the prospects of moving towards a single education system". That's quite an ambition in a country where over 90% of pupils attend religiously segregated schools. Religious sectoral bodies wield great power in Northern Ireland, dominating the planning and delivery of education, including through control of governing bodies and curricula, and acting as a barrier to reform.
On a recent episode of the NSS podcast, I discussed the independent review and the issues it should consider with Sam Fitzsimmons, of the Integrated Education Fund (IEF), and Matthew Milliken, of Ulster University. The IEF has released its own position on the review and its terms of reference (ToR). The NSS has also received assurances from education minister Peter Weir that the issues that matter to secularists can fall within the ToR.
We will be engaging actively with the independent review, along with our friends and partners in NI, and helping our supporters to do the same. We will urge the panel to seize this opportunity to:
1. Roll back religious groups' control of schools
Last week a University of Ulster paper described Northern Ireland's education system as a "bewildering alphabetical word-storm of acronyms and initials". This is thanks largely to the vested interests of churches. If starting from scratch, no one would suggest such a bizarre and fragmented system.
The review should recommend putting control of education in the hands of accountable organisations, who prioritise the needs of school communities. Sectoral bodies, including religious groups which currently control schools, should transform into independent NGOs.
2. Tackle the inefficiencies caused by religious segregation
Religious bodies jealously protect 'their' schools, even when this creates gross inefficiencies, while communities suffer. As a result there are close to 50,000 surplus school places across NI and almost £100m a year is wasted on duplication, not counting additional transport costs.
No one wants to see schools close. But in much of the country pairs of schools – one largely serving children from Catholic backgrounds, and one largely serving children from Protestant backgrounds – are standing half empty. These need to be combined into single integrated schools to free up investment and better serve children. These decisions should put in the hands of communities.
3. Bring schools in line with equalities legislation
There is no good reason why teachers should be the only profession in NI to be excluded from anti-discrimination protections. Consistently large majorities tell pollsters they believe the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 should be extended to cover teachers.
4. Phase out religious governance of schools
Researchers have warned that continuing to embed overtly Christian denominational influence on governing bodies undermines schools' ability to meet the changing needs of their pupils. The review should also recommend gradually reducing the proportion of school governors appointed on religious grounds and moving to a fully inclusive governance model. Reducing sectoral bodies' control over governing bodies means their ethos would be more responsive to the needs of the school community, rather than the interests of the religious body.
5. Integrate more existing schools
Large majorities of parents in NI would like to send their children to integrated schools, which bring together children from different backgrounds. But far too few have this option. We want a fully integrated community ethos system. But in the short term the community led process of transformation is the best route to integrated status for most schools.
The review should look at ways to encourage this and reduce the scope for opposition from sectoral bodies. Areas with low levels of integrated provision, and where pupils are having to travel a disproportionate distance, should be prioritised.
6. Ensure all aspects of the school day are suitable for all pupils
Schools shouldn't be agents of faith formation, so the archaic requirement that pupils take part in a daily act collective worship should be abolished. It's not enough to make worship nondenominational Christian rather than distinctively Protestant or Catholic. That doesn't serve pupils who don't identify Christian or respect pupils' independent right to develop their own beliefs.
7. Modernise education about worldviews
Religious education in NI schools is controlled by religious bodies to a greater extent than anywhere else in the UK, and designed to "develop an awareness, knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the key Christian teachings… and develop an ability to interpret and relate the Bible to life". RE is not properly inspected and is often delivered partly by external evangelical organisations.
There should be a new worldviews curriculum suitable for all schools and developed by educational experts with educational, rather than confessional, aims.
8. Modernise RSE provision
Currently schools are required to develop a curriculum for relationships and sex education based on their religious ethos. Provision is extremely unequal and often organised to promote religious interests and views, rather than provide a comprehensive, rights-based education for pupils. This needs to change.
Time for change
No challenge facing education in NI is unique, even within the UK. Wales needs to reorganise and modernise school provision in the face of changing populations. Scotland has a legacy of sectarianism and a divided education system to reflect it. In England the entrenched interests of faith bodies act as a barrier to reform.
But the extent of religious control in NI's schools and the damage that segregation has done are more substantial. There is now a golden opportunity to tackle this. Let's hope the review panel seizes it.
Image: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com.
The evidence against faith schools is overwhelming
Posted: Tue, 23rd Feb 2021
A comprehensive new bank of academic research shows how shaky the main arguments for faith schools are, say its authors Steven Kettell and Rebecca Vernon.
Since state-funded faith schools were radically expanded and diversified by the New Labour governments almost two decades ago, controversy around their place in the UK's education system has never been far away.
Supporters claim faith schools offer a variety of benefits, including greater choice for parents, superior educational outcomes, and the promotion of moral values. Critics strongly dispute such claims and maintain that state-funded faith schooling is incongruous in a country where religion is in significant decline.
Figures from the British Social Attitudes survey show that more than 50% of adults in Britain now describe themselves as having 'no religion', yet around a third of all state-funded schools in England are classified as having a faith (overwhelmingly Christian) designation. On an average school day over a million children will be found attending Church of England schools, a figure that dwarfs the average church attendance (currently standing at just 690,000 for any given Sunday).
While much has been written on this topic, research findings are often published in a variety of locations (often difficult to access), making it hard to gain a comprehensive view of the debate. We hope to address that. The Faith Schools Research Bank draws together available research which highlights the negative effects of faith schools, making it easy to access from a single location.
The research bank is divided into five sections, each outlining a key area in the debate. Research contained in the first section, 'social cohesion', challenges claims that faith schools are socially beneficial, as the evidence shows that segregating pupils on the basis of their parents' faith fosters exclusivity, insularity, and social division.
In the second section, 'performance and selection', we address the question of educational outcomes. Research here shows that faith schools do not produce better grades than non-faith schools once factors other than the alleged faith 'ethos' of the school (such as pupil intakes and demographics) are accounted for.
The third section deals with issues of 'choice and admissions'. This reveals substantial flaws in the argument that faith schools are good for parental choice. It looks at the way faith schools often compel parents to send their children to schools with a religious outlook which they may not share. It also highlights their use of unfair admissions procedures to limit entry for children whose parents do not share their religious faith.
Research in the fourth section, 'values and morality', examines the claim that faith schools are able to promote enduring moral values. Many studies here show that faith schools are primarily motivated to advance the interests of particular religious institutions, a goal that undermines the intellectual freedom and autonomy of their pupils, and that the promotion of religious values often runs contrary to ideals of equality in areas such as sexual orientation and reproductive rights.
The final section, on 'opinion polls', sets out a wide range of polling data questioning the popularity of faith schools in Britain. The evidence here suggests that there is a strong and consistent opposition to the idea of state-funded faith schools, from religious and non-religious citizens alike.
Entries in the research bank have been collated from three key sources of information: (1) peer-reviewed academic articles, based on an extensive survey of more than one hundred journals published during the last decade and a half; (2) reports from third-party organisations, such as think-tanks, charities, and campaign groups; and (3) findings from opinion poll surveys conducted on the issue of faith schools since their introduction.
Each entry in the research bank provides an easily digestible snapshot of the key evidence contained in the study, providing an at-a-glance overview of the central argument and how it relates to the core themes of the debate. All documents are fully referenced, and wherever possible we have provided direct links to the sources that we have used. Where we have been unable to do this (for instance, in the case of academic articles that are viewable by subscription), we have linked to alternative sources (such as the available author copies) as frequently as possible.
It is our intention to expand and update this research bank over the coming months and years, allowing us to include more research findings as they become available. Our hope is that it will provide an invaluable and comprehensive resource for anyone interested in the ongoing debate around faith schools in Britain.
Launch event: The NSS will be holding an online Q&A with Steven Kettell on Thursday 8 April. Click here to register.
Image: LightField Studios/Shutterstock.com
