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.
Faith schools foster unfairness and discrimination
Posted: Tue, 20th Jun 2023
Fairness and freedom should be central to state education. Recommendations from the UN child rights committee lay bare faith schools' failings, argues Stephen Evans.
On any given Sunday countless numbers of nonbelievers dutifully trapse off to church, not in search of sermons or salvation, but school places.
The bizarre phenomenon of parents attending church to secure a place at their local school stems from around a third of state funded schools being faith schools. Many of these may, when oversubscribed, give preferential treatment to children from families deemed sufficiently pious.
Faith-based admissions exist to ensure religious organisations running state schools can 'serve their own'. But the system also benefits the 'pew-jumping' middle class, who are willing and able to game the system by feigning faith to gain a place in a sought-after selective school.
It's often claimed that church schools deliver better academic outcomes. But the evidence shows that any educational advantages are small and are explained by factors around pupil intakes, such as religiously selective admissions arrangements.
Religious selection acts as a form of socioeconomic selection – and it's this, rather than a religious ethos, which compels many middle class parents to turn up at church to gain a place at a well performing school, without paying for a place at a private school. 'On your knees, avoid the fees', as the saying goes.
One such parent who admitted to doing this appeared on a local BBC radio debate I took part in last weekend. He explained that, unsatisfied with the schools in his catchment area, and unable to avoid private school fees, he attended services at an evangelical church once a month for five years to gain the necessary 'points' for a school place. He stopped going the moment his child's application was submitted.
That parents are willing to jump through such hoops to get their child into a particular school is a sad reflection on our state school system. Ideally, all children would have access to a good local school. By siphoning off the children from wealthier families at the expense of the rest, faith schools exacerbate the attainment gap between non-selective and selective education.
Gaming the system may be morally dubious, but rather than blame parents, we should reserve our indignation for a system that allows taxpayer funded schools to operate discriminatory admissions and select pupils on religious grounds.
The Equality Act exemptions that allow faith schools to give preferential treatment to worshippers legitimises faith-based discrimination. Thirteen years after the passing of landmark legislation to protect people from unfair treatment, religion's influence in state education is ensuring 19th century-style religious discrimination remains a feature of 21st century schooling.
Making religious leaders the gatekeepers to publicly funded services has other unintended consequences, too.
Whilst Church of England and Catholic schools usually require church attendance to gain the school's blessing, religious requirements in the oversubscription criteria of some minority faith schools' policies impose extreme religious ideology on families.
National Secular Society research revealed how some religious authorities use faith-based admission requirements to control how their students' families dress, whether they can use the internet, what they can eat, and even when they have sex.
Surely, it's time to consign this form of discrimination to history.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) certainly thinks so. In its concluding observations to its latest periodic examination of child rights in the UK, the CRC called on the UK to guarantee the right of all children to freedom of expression and to practise freely their religion or belief, including by repealing archaic school worship laws and preventing the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admissions.
Those campaigning for a fairer and more inclusive school system often ignore faith schools and focus instead on grammar schools. The government has admitted it does not know how many schools apply religious discrimination in their admissions. But it's clear that far more school places in England are subject to religious selection than academic selection. So, if you want to achieve a fairer and more inclusive education system, faith schools are the obvious place to start.
That means standing up to entrenched religious interests by insisting the schools we all pay for are open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief – and that they respect and protect all their pupils' freedom of religion or belief.
Despite the lack of evidence that faith schools do this any better than other schools, faith school enthusiasts like to wax lyrical about the values they instil in children – honesty, kindness, compassion, justice. But the values they actually entrench in society are privilege, unfairness, and discrimination.
One Conservative MP characterised the UN's recommendations as "intolerant" and an "attack on people and institutions of faith". Vested interests lined up to echo those sentiments. But tackling human rights violations and discrimination takes aim not at religion, but at the negatives that flow from organising public services around it.
A pluralist society should both tolerate and celebrate all forms of diversity, but that diversity should be represented within schools, not be a marker of division and a basis for educating and segregating children.
Adopting the UN child rights committee's recommendations would go a long way to putting things right.
Image: Rawpixel.com, Shutterstock
It’s religion’s critics, not believers, who are being pushed out of politics
Posted: Thu, 15th Jun 2023
Christian politicians have recently claimed they cannot talk openly about their faith. Megan Manson says recent events show politicians who criticise religion are far more likely to be silenced.
At a recent discussion hosted by religious think tank Theos, evangelical Christian Miriam Cates MP (pictured) lamented that it is "incredibly difficult" for politicians to talk openly about faith.
Cates was referring to Kate Forbes MSP, and her failed bid to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National Party – and first minister of Scotland. Forbes has also given a recent BBC interview where she echoed the sentiment that religious people are being forced out of politics.
Cates asked the room: "Which part of the Christian religion is so hideous to people now? Is it helping the poor?"
It was a disingenuous question that conveniently ignored what the public actually find so concerning about Forbes: the views of the church she belongs to, the Free Church of Scotland.
This is a fundamentalist church which has opposed abortion, gay marriage, and children playing on swings on Sundays. Most people would consider these to be controversial positions to say the least. It is perfectly reasonable for the public to question a politician who belongs a group which espouses such views, religious or not.
As it happens, the leadership went to a Muslim, Humza Yousaf. If the highest seat of office in Scotland can go to a member of a conservative religion, surely that's evidence enough that the public doesn't find faith as off-putting as Cates makes out.
Nevertheless, Cates is right – it is difficult for politicians to talk openly about faith.
But perhaps not in the way she meant.
Within the space of a month, we've seen two politicians pushed out of their role for talking about religion. More specifically, for criticising religion.
In May, councillor Mike Gilbert was refused the mayoralty of Boston Borough Council because of Facebook posts in which he condemned Islam's stance on homosexuality and women's rights. The comments were made during the football World Cup hosted by Qatar, which at the time prompted widespread public debate about the human rights record of Qatar's Islamic regime.
The serving mayor implied Gilbert's legitimate criticisms were "hate speech" during the council's annual general meeting and told other councillors that failure to condemn such speech could be interpreted as expressions of "approval or support".
And this month, in an eerily similar case, Neyland town councillor Andrew Lye was stripped of his mayoralty after a blog he wrote in 2008 came to light, in which he questioned the religious circumcision of babies. It should be noted over 60% of Brits would support a law against non-medical circumcision of boys - a painful, permanent and non-consensual procedure which can have serious complications, including death.
Fellow councillor Brian Rothero called Lye's comments "nothing short of antisemitic and anti-Muslim". The council subsequently voted to remove Lye from the mayoralty. Lye has since resigned from the council.
Both cases spell grave danger for democracy and free speech. It only takes the silencing of one politician to silence them all. The message is clear: don't criticise religion, or you'll lose your job.
If politicians can't raise concerns about the human rights of gay people, women or children where religion is involved, what does that mean for the future of those human rights?
Religious fundamentalists are highly motivated to make it difficult for outsiders to talk honestly and critically about their religion. The all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims have aggressively pushed for institutions including local councils and political parties to adopt their definition of 'Islamophobia'. Organisations including the National Secular Society have warned the definition, which easily conflates criticism of Islam with anti-Muslim bigotry, would chill free speech and conflict with equality law. The recent incidents at two local councils prove this point all too well.
While local councillors are forced from their jobs for challenging the more egregious aspects of faith, religion (and especially Christianity) basks in a privileged position at all levels in government. As the established church, the Church of England enjoys unparalleled access to our head of state and the houses of parliament. It even has 26 bishops appointed to the House of Lords as of right, all of whom have full voting rights and are generally given deference during debates. Sittings in both houses open with prayers – as do many council meetings.
This is hardly an environment where religion fears government. As recent cases demonstrate, the opposite is true.
Cates did make a surprisingly secularist point during the discussion, however. Defending Forbes, she said: "There should be a separation between personal faith and what happens in a democracy".
It is heartening to see an understanding here that separating the democratic process from personal religion is key to protecting everyone's freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, whether religious or not.
But it's a process which goes both ways. Just as religious people should be free to express their beliefs, others shouldn't be afraid to criticise them.
And the best framework for this is a secular democracy, where religion is neither privileged nor disadvantaged, and just one of many stalls in the marketplace of ideas.
Why are councillors doing Islamists’ work for them?
Posted: Mon, 5th Jun 2023
After a councillor was denied mayoralty for criticising Islam, Jack Rivington warns politicians are playing into the hands of Islamist fundamentalists.
Last week, members of Boston Borough Council decided that the principle of free expression, and the traditions of their mayoralty, were less important than potentially offended religious feelings.
By convention as the longest serving member, Councillor Mike Gilbert was due to be appointed mayor of Boston for a one year term. However, following an intervention by several fellow councillors, he was blocked from taking up the position last month on the grounds that he had made past comments criticising aspects of Islamic religious doctrine.
These comments, posted on social media during the football World Cup in Qatar, drew attention to several features of Islam which Cllr Gilbert considered to be in conflict with the rights of women and LGBT people. Namely that in Islam, homosexuality is punishable by death, and women are considered to be of a lower status than men.
Despite Cllr Gilbert very clearly stating that his criticisms were not of Muslims themselves but of particular religious doctrines, a number of borough councillors saw fit to denounce him for what they characterised as 'hate speech'.
Cllr Anne Dorrian, who was serving as mayor at the time, said councillors had a political and moral obligation to "refrain from using hate speech". Failure to condemn such speech, Cllr Dorrian warned, could be interpreted as expressions of "approval or support". Cllr Dale Broughton also criticised the remarks, saying that they did "little to bring about social integration" in Boston.
It's disappointing that our elected representatives don't consider themselves at least equally obligated to defend the right to freedom of expression, integral as it is to our democratic society, or to advance the cause of secularism, which is the best guarantee of social cohesion and integration that we know of.
Through their actions, the councillors have signalled that religion, and in particular Islam, should be beyond the realm of reasonable public debate. Although attempts by religious fundamentalists to impose blasphemy codes and suppress freedom of expression around Islam are so regular as to no longer be surprising, it is alarming to see UK politicians so readily line up to support the same cause.
No argument was presented by the councillors as to why the comments were hateful, or indeed factually incorrect. Cllr Gilbert's concerns were simply deemed unmentionable, remarks which should not have to be read, tolerated, or thought about. Cllr Gilbert's name has been unfairly smeared, and those responsible can't even be bothered provide an explanation.
Is there any justification for such censorship which does not involve the claim that criticism or even discussion of ideas amounts to a personal attack on individuals? If applied to any non-religious ideology the ridiculous nature of this claim becomes apparent. Criticising the idea of a constitutional monarchy, for example, does not amount to a grave insult to the personal dignity of committed royalists – any claim that it did would be worthy of ridicule. There is nothing to justify religious viewpoints being treated any differently.
It is worth recalling the motivation of Cllr Gilbert's posts: to highlight injustices being done to women and LGBT people by those who employ Islamic doctrine as a justification. This, of course, includes people who are themselves Muslims, many of whom are engaged in their own battles against regressive religious dogma. By the logic of Boston's councillors, expressing solidarity with a significant proportion of the Muslim community is somehow hateful towards them.
Let us imagine that Cllr Gilbert's comments had instead been made by, say, an ex-Muslim lesbian. Would the councillors have disparaged and discounted them in the same way? If not, why not? Are the comments themselves hateful, or are they only hateful in virtue of being spoken by a particular kind of person?
Following the council meeting, Cllr Gilbert was invited by the imam of Boston's mosque, Abdul Hamid Qureshi, to a meeting where they could discuss his "assumptions", which he described as "speculative rather than factual" and "out of context and selective". Irritating and patronising though this is, the opportunity for dialogue should be welcomed. It would be nice if Mr Qureshi could also make clear his position on the supposed 'hateful' nature of Cllr Gilbert's remarks, or defend the right to freedom of expression despite his disagreement with what was said.
The people most likely to be grateful to Boston's councillors are religious fundamentalists, who now don't even have to kick up a fuss for free speech to be suppressed. As Boston's councillors have made clear, there's enough useful idiots who are willing to do it for them.
Thanks, but no thanks: the US can keep its culture war
Posted: Wed, 24th May 2023
American efforts to export regressive religious views under the guise of the 'culture war' are to be resisted, argues Alejandro Sanchez.
President of US conservative thinktank The Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, is a man on a mission. A keynote speaker at this year's National Conservatism (NatCon) conference in London, he bemoans the reticence of the British right to engage in "what we Americans call the culture war" – a struggle between groups with opposing and entrenched ideologies to dictate public policy. He now seeks to stoke the flames of social division here in the UK.
This should come as no surprise. Back home, Roberts champions a crusade against "woke totalitarianism" underpinned by "faith, family, freedom, and nation." And he speaks openly of his desire to overturn the constitutional right to same-sex marriage in the US, describing it as "a really bad social experiment that we're only beginning to see the rotten fruit of".
The "political success" of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, he claims, serves as a shining example of what can be achieved by harnessing the power of the culture war. And what is this success, exactly? A six-week abortion ban and the Protections of Medical Conscience Act, which allows doctors to deny gay patients treatment on the basis of a "sincerely held" religious belief.
Call me a cynic, but the spoils of Roberts' culture war and the long-standing goal of Christian nationalism – to impose conservative Christian values on our political life - seem curiously aligned. This thinly veiled rebrand makes perfect sense in the British context: for the first time in the history of the census, we are now a minority Christian nation. Theological invocations simply will not wash with the public.
Instead, religious objections to women's and gay rights are being repackaged and masqueraded as part of a broader backlash against 'wokeism'. This is not to say there are no legitimate criticisms to be made of the excesses of the left, only that regressive religious agendas should be recognised for what they truly are.
The Edmund Burke Foundation, the American organiser of NatCon, is even less subtle. Public life "should be rooted in Christianity", it says. And the "lifelong bond between a man and woman" is "the foundation of all other achievements in our civilisation". No prizes for inferring the logical conclusion of that.
Fellow speaker and evangelical Christian Danny Kruger MP said the quiet part out loud: heterosexual marriage, he proclaimed, is the "only possible basis for a safe and successful society". And though his naked homophobia was rightly rejected by the government, if the rise of Trump and attendant US Christian nationalism has taught us anything, it is this: when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
To the extent that the culture war is characterised by bad faith arguments, deliberate efforts to polarise, and the promulgation of echo chambers, it is to be opposed. Instead, we should aspire to reasoned criticism of opposing views and unsparing self-examination of our own.
In closing, I draw on the warning of NatCon's own James Orr. He implored fellow conference-goers to shield British children from the "norms and narratives from our cultural colonial overlords in the United States". We should take his advice one step further, and reject the American culture war wholesale.
Hold the Church to account for abuse – separate it from the state
Posted: Tue, 16th May 2023
The Church of England's increasingly dire record on safeguarding should have consequences for its established status, says Megan Manson.
It didn't take long for the glitz and glamour of the coronation to fade, and for the Church of England to find itself back in the quagmire of abuse scandals.
Within days of their Westminster Abbey extravaganza, the UK's established Church found itself having to answer to damning findings of an independent review into the case of Trevor Devamanikkam, a CofE priest who raped Matthew Ineson in the 1980s. Ineson was just 16 years old.
Days later, victims of alleged abuse at the hands of CofE preacher Mike Pilavachi called for an independent investigation into his actions, as they don't trust the Church's own internal inquiry.
Pilavachi's victims and survivors have every right to be sceptical of the Church's ability, in their words, to "mark its own homework". The Devamanikkam review, and responses from those implicated, make plain why.
The review paints a picture of a chaotic and bumbling Church, unclear of what to do when safeguarding disclosures are made and incapable of providing important paperwork relating to the case in a timely manner (if at all).
But most troubling of all are the bishops who failed to act despite Ineson, himself now a CofE vicar, making multiple verbal and written disclosures of abuse. Bishop of Oxford Steven Croft (pictured; left) and retired archbishop of York John Sentamu (right) in particular stand out. Both of them sit in the House of Lords thanks to the unique CofE privilege of having 26 seats reserved for their bishops. Croft is a current member of the bishops' bench and Sentamu is now a Lord Temporal; all former archbishops of Canterbury and York are offered life peerage.
Croft has admitted his inaction was wrong and, 10 years after Ineson's disclosure, has finally apologised. Ineson, not unreasonably, has called for Croft to step down: "You cannot ignore disclosures of rape by a priest and do nothing."
But Sentamu's reaction has been quite different. Let's not forget he was archbishop of York at the time of the disclosures – second only to the archbishop of Canterbury in the church hierarchy. He was copied into Ineson's letter disclosing the abuse to Croft in 2013. In any place of work, you would hope a safeguarding issue, especially one raised by a current employee, would be taken with the utmost seriousness by senior management. But Sentamu's only action was to reply to Ineson: "Thank you for copying me into the letter, which I have read. Please be assured of my prayers and best wishes during this testing time."
The review rightly criticised Sentamu for failing to use his authority to ensure Croft responded to Ineson, or to write to Ineson directly, or to seek advice from his Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser, instead of merely sending 'thoughts and prayers'.
Unlike Croft, Sentamu's reaction to the review was not to admit wrongdoing, but to double down. He said the reviewer's conclusion that no church law "excuses the responsibility of individuals not to act on matters of a safeguarding nature" is "odd and troubling". He even made the extraordinary claim that "Safeguarding is very important but it does not trump Church Law".
Sentamu appears to be incorrect; the review concluded Sentamu failed to act according to the Church's own procedures. But his statement is not only wrong – it reveals the extremely warped sense of moral priorities that many Church leaders operate under. If a church's rules meant a victim of child sexual abuse could not get justice, surely a moral person could not tolerate being a leader within that church?
Sentamu has since been asked to step down from his CofE role while the Church considers the review. But he is by no means the first CofE leader to seemingly prioritise institutional agendas over the safety and wellbeing of children and young people. Consider the case of bishop Peter Ball, whose victims of abuse were branded liars by the Church while Ball was afforded all sympathy and support – even from former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey and then-Prince Charles, who is now the Church's supreme governor.
Even former culture secretary Nadine Dorries MP, not usually a sceptic of faith groups, has criticised the Church's response to the Devamanikkam case. She was abused as a child by an Anglican priest but was met with "silence" when she disclosed what happened to her, and probably to other young girls, to bishops in the House of Lords. She rightly asks: "How many more of us — people like Matthew Ineson and myself — are there out there? People who were abused as youngsters and then ignored."
She adds: "The Roman Catholic Church has, with good cause, been the focus of much of the historic child sex abuse in recent decades, and that has suited the Church of England. But it cannot escape the evil that lurks within its own cloisters any longer."
But what is the state's response to the Church's failures on child abuse?
Very little, it seems. The Church continues to sit comfortably in the constitution as the state religion, luxuriating in the status and privilege this brings. Its bishops, even those at the heart of safeguarding failures, continue to sit in the House of Lords as of right. Our head of state must pledge to uphold the Church's privileges at an Anglican ceremony costing millions in taxpayers' money – as we speak, plans for William's coronation are already afoot. The Church is allowed to lead prayers at the start of every sitting in both houses of parliament. And it controls over a quarter of all primary schools, making it the largest academy provider in England. Hardly a responsibility we'd usually grant an institution with such an appalling record on child abuse.
The Church uses its supposed 'moral insight' to argue for its privileges. Its record on sex abuse surely shatters this argument – together with its increasingly outdated institutional homophobia and sexism.
Survivors and campaigners rightly call for a zero-tolerance approach from the Church of England towards abuse. But this responsibility should also apply to the UK state. If we want to demonstrate we take protecting children from abuse and justice for victims seriously, we must show there are consequences for institutions that repeatedly fail in safeguarding. That should include stripping the Church of its exclusive, unearned and increasingly unjustifiable privileges as the state religion.
Image: Roger Harris, CC BY 3.0
