FIRST PERSON: FAITH SCHOOLS HELP REINFORCE SOCIAL DIVISIONS

Harry Perry has written the First Person column in today's Leicester Mercury:

Faith schools help reinforce social divisions

State education must not be allowed to discriminate by religion, says Harry Perry of Leicester Secular Society

All state-funded schools should be open to all children regardless of their parents' religion. Seems obvious when stated like that, doesn't it? Taxpayers from across the belief spectrum pay for our state schools yet there is in our country a Government-promoted policy for large numbers of publicly funded schools to be allowed to discriminate on the basis of parents' beliefs.

Why should that be? We also pay for the NHS, police and armed forces, for roads and social services and for the criminal justice system, yet nobody would dream of arguing aspects of these should be managed differently for people with different beliefs. So it should be for schools.

Even where faith schools have made pledges to ensure a mixed intake, we find admissions are skewed towards children of their own religion.

A national campaign has been launched to oppose religiously selective school admissions policies. It is called the Fair Admissions Campaign and you can easily find it on the web.

This campaign is particularly relevant in Leicester, where diversity of beliefs and communal harmony are trumpeted as our unique selling point in a world where religious conflict is a growing threat to international peace.

Elsewhere, we hear of children from families with the "wrong" beliefs being forced to travel far to find a non-discriminatory school.

There is a growing trend for parents to lie about their religious beliefs and even to attend services as part of the deception, in order to get their kids into a favoured school. How can that be a good example?

The most dramatically segregated schooling system in the UK is in Northern Ireland, but even there, after decades of civil strife, politicians are now pressing for integration.

Why is it important? It must be clear – especially from recent events – that so many of the tensions and conflicts in the UK and elsewhere are based on faith and ethnic divisions. Our communities remain riven by the differences which we should be learning to set aside.

Religiously selective schools cannot, of course, be held solely responsible for these problems, but they do underpin a system in which children learn they are different. They do not build friendships with others and the separation of children within schools reinforces wider divisions, as parents do not meet at the school gate.

It is vital individuals throughout the education system recognise and adhere to an inter-cultural approach that seeks at every opportunity to get people to mix rather than living with a constant emphasis on difference.

FAITH SCHOOLS: CLAIMS WRONG

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Faith schools: Claims wrong

John Catt (Mailbox, March 7) is quite wrong to single out, as he and his secular colleagues often do, faith schools by saying that bus subsidies for children attending them should be withdrawn.

His statement that these subsidies "are not available to those outside the favoured denominations" is quite simply wrong.

On average, Catholic schools take between 25-35 per cent of their pupils from outside the Church. There is no evidence that such pupils are discriminated against on transport matters. It would probably be illegal anyway, under anti-discrimination legislation.

These schools offer their pupils a real choice which non-religious schools simply don't. They offer their pupils a chance to see the spiritual side of life, as opposed to the rampant materialism and Godlessness all around them when they leave the school gates.

Also, many children have to travel quite long distances to get to these schools, which would put a severe strain on the budget of the average families concerned if they had to pay full bus fares or parents had to take their children to school every day as a result.

Terry Kirby, Barwell

CUT TRAVEL SUBSIDIES FOR PUPILS AT FAITH SCHOOLS

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Cut travel subsidies for pupils at faith schools

Leicestershire County Council is currently consulting on part of its "Austerity Budget" (Mercury February 23), one aspect of which relates to the subsidies it provides for transport.

The consultation closes on April 2 and the documentation can be found on the county council's website.

Cuts in subsidies are being considered for both travel by the disabled and for home-to-school transport for children attending their nearest church school on denominational grounds.

The consultation document says: "Students currently contribute £240 per year towards their travel. The full cost of providing each seat is £490 per year.

"Leicestershire County Council currently pays a subsidy of £250 per seat, per year for around 1,000 pupils. This costs us £250,000 per year.

"Leicestershire County Council has a duty to take into account the wishes of parents on the grounds of religion or belief, but there is no duty to provide free or subsidised transport (except for children from qualifying low income families)."

I believe the subsidy for children from religious families, which is not available to those outside the favoured denominations, is wrong and should be withdrawn, rather than cut help for the disabled.

The subsidy will only be removed from better off families.

Your readers might like to make their views known by completing the consultation document on the county council's website.
John R Catt, Loughborough

THE ROLE OF CHURCH SCHOOLS

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

The role of church schools

There are a number of misleading ideas in Allan Hayes' letter "A divided society looms" (Mailbox, February 13).

Contrary to the implication of the letter, most Church of England schools do not "select pupils by their religion" and have very inclusive admission policies which are open to people of any religion or none. What is on offer is a Christian ethos in terms of the values and practices of the school and the approach to education.

This, however, is not exceptional. There is no such thing as a "neutral" school in terms of ethos and a secular-humanist outlook is just as much a faith stance as a religious one.

Of course, it would be natural for Anglicans to want the next generation to understand and experience the Christian faith at school, but the idea of the church "using schools more systematically to evangelise" is again misleading, and church schools would understand the distinction between education and ethos on the one hand and any attempt to convert on the other.

Finally, saying that "the church is offering to take the place of local authorities in providing assistance" and "looking to be the biggest 'provider' of education in the country" makes it sound as if the church has initiated big expansionist plans.

The fact is that the Government has introduced the academies initiative and the provision of the local authority in the county is diminishing fast.

Leicester diocese's board of education is very committed to support its 97 church schools, many of which are small and are very vulnerable in this new era. Consequently clustering with other schools is one way to ensure that they continue to have access to good quality services.

Sometimes it will make sense to partner with non church schools too.

However, the purpose of that would not be to make them become church schools, but to benefit from shared support and resources.

So I would have no quarrel with Allan Hayes' conclusion – "We must work together" – a commitment to the best education for our children demands that.

However, misleading statements about the nature and purpose of church schools is only going to increase division and defensiveness, when in reality they are as committed to an inclusive vision for education as anyone.

David Newman, Archdeacon of Loughborough and chair of the Board of Education for Leicester Diocese

"ANTI-GAY" BOOK PUTS GOVE AT CENTRE OF FAITH SCHOOL TEACHING ROW

This article appears on the website of the Guardian today:

"Anti-gay" book puts Gove at centre of faith school teaching row

Education secretary says Equality Act does not extend to school curriculum – allowing faith schools to use homophobic material

By Jamie Doward

Michael Gove, the education secretary, is at the centre of an escalating row over how faith schools discuss homosexuality in sex education classes.

The TUC has accused Gove of failing in his legal duties by insisting that equality laws, which prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, do not extend to the school curriculum.

The TUC complains that the current situation sends mixed signals to the playground, because schools are legally obliged to condemn discrimination on sexual-orientation grounds but free to use religious materials that equality campaigners claim is homophobic.

Brendan Barber, the TUC's general secretary, wrote to Gove in December expressing alarm that a booklet containing "homophobic material" had been distributed by a US preacher after talks to pupils at Roman Catholic schools across the Lancashire region in 2010.

The booklet, "Pure Manhood: How to become the man God wants you to be", discusses a boy dealing with "homosexual attractions" which it suggested may "stem from an unhealthy relationship with his father, an inability to relate to other guys, or even sexual abuse".

The booklet, which claims that "scientifically speaking, safe sex is a joke", explains that "the homosexual act is disordered, much like contraceptive sex between heterosexuals. Both acts are directed against God's natural purpose for sex – babies and bonding."

Referring to the Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination against individuals, Barber said: "Schools now have a legal duty to challenge all forms of prejudice. Such literature undermines this completely."

But Gove insists: "The education provisions of the Equality Act 2010which prohibit discrimination against individuals based on their protected characteristics (including their sexual orientation) do not extend to the content of the curriculum. Any materials used in sex and relationship education lessons, therefore, will not be subject to the discrimination provisions of the act."

Gove's response has triggered anger from the TUC. "Having written to the education secretary to express our worry about the distribution of homophobic literature in faith schools, his lack of concern is very alarming," Barber said.

A DfE spokesman insisted: "Any school engaging in the promotion of homophobic material would be acting unlawfully." But the row highlights a grey area over the teaching of sex education. A review intended to provide new guidelines on what was appropriate for schools to teach was kicked into the long grass when the last election was called.

"It would certainly be helpful if there was clarity as to what is appropriate for young people of all ages," said Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall. "The water could no longer be muddied by people pushing age-inappropriate sex material on the one hand and fundamentalist anti-gay religious materials on the other."

The row comes at the end of an extraordinary week in which the role of religion in society has come under acute scrutiny.

The chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, said religious rules should be left "at the door of the temple" and give way to the "public law" laid down by parliament. Phillips said: "Once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules – for example, child protection – then it has to go with public law." Phillips spoke out after Baroness Warsi, the Tory minister, warned Britain was under threat from a rising tide of "militant secularisation".

Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, warned that Christianity was being marginalised. Days earlier, the high court ruled that councils had no statutory power to hold prayers in meetings, while the Christian owners of a bed-and-breakfast lost an appeal against a ruling that their policy of restricting double rooms to married couples discriminated against a gay couple.

Concerns that faith matters are being marginalised at school has prompted the creation of a new coalition of faith groups and politicians. The Religious Education Council of England and Wales is to back the creation of an all-party parliamentary group that will focus on protecting religious education in schools and stressing its value to young people.

GOVERNMENT OPPOSITION TO SECULARISM SHOULD CONCERN US ALL

This story appears today on the website of the Huffington Post:

Government opposition to Secularism should concern us all

To call Britain a "Christian country" is only marginally more sensible than calling Italy a "Roman country" and it was appropriate that Baroness Warsi made her most recent rallying cry against secularism amongst all the archaic pomp of the Vatican state. As a simple factual statement the "Christian country" line is of course demonstrably false (the most recent British Social Attitudes Survey published at the end of last year put the proportion of Christians at 40% and falling) and as a historical claim it omits as much of our cultural past as it includes. But on this occasion it was not so much Christianity the Baroness had come to praise but secularism she had come to attack.

But it is not overweening secularism that is the UK's problem - it is continuing and entrenched privilege for Christianity and Christian churches, and the consequent efforts by other religious groups for privileges of their own.

It was especially surreal of the Baroness to accuse secularism of being "intolerant" and "illiberal". It is not secular schools in England that are allowed by law to discriminate against children on the basis of their parents' religious beliefs: it's the thousands of state-funded Christian schools and the handful of those run by other religions. It is not secular agencies that reserve employment opportunities for staff according to their beliefs, but the many Christian and other religious agencies who are increasingly having public services contracted to them by the state. It is not non-religious organisations which lobby for and have received special exemptions from laws - like equality laws - that should affect everyone equally. It's not the British Humanist Association that has unelected representatives as of right in our national legislature - it's the 26 bishops of the Church of England who are there.

These and many many other examples of religious privilege and continued official discrimination on grounds of religion or belief give the lie to Lady Warsi's oft-repeated smears. 

by would be good if we could dismiss her as just a minority of one but - at least in her views on this issue - she is far from isolated. Eric Pickles just last week jumped into the row about local councils not being able to include prayer on their formal agendas with the same anti-secularist gusto he has displayed on previous occasions. At the end of last year, David Cameron made his own extraordinary speech on Britain's status as a Christian country, a speech which provoked more astonished bemusement than outrage, with its self-evidently ahistorical and bizarre statements, and its improbable calls on us all to be confident in our Christian nature.

When they are so palpably out of kilter with reality, why do present day politicians keep saying these things?

The most hopeful political reading is that they don't really mean it and are just attempting to pacify the small but increasingly strident minority of Christian lobby groups who are seeking yet great influence in our public life and greater privilege for those with Christian beliefs. It would be a shame that politicians had bought into the crazy narrative of "christianophobia" that these lobby groups promote, but at least we could rest assured that it would just be political rhetoric and no practical harm would come of it.

More alarming is if Warsi, Pickles and Cameron are serious in their message. A government that tried to make Christianity and Christian beliefs the foundation of British values or a social morality would be building on seriously unstable and unshared foundations. Secularism is essentially a political strategy that says, in the context of a diverse society, the state should not discriminate in favour of or against any person because of their religious or non-religious beliefs. For a government to set itself against that principle is concerning, and the expansion of state-funded religious schools, contracting out of public services to religious groups, and official guarantees of Christian privilege in public life give increasing plausibility to this second interpretation of the politicians' words.

If the latter interpretation is the correct one, then politicians should remember that their approach is far from popular. In a 2006 IpsosMori poll, "religious groups and leaders" actually topped the list of domestic groups that people said had too much influence on government. In the research released yesterday by the Richard Dawkins foundation, over 90% of self-described Christians said they did not think religion should have special place in public policy. A majority of the public surveyed - including a majority of Christians - repeatedly say they are against new religious schools. Policies that pursue religious exceptionalism in defiance of demographic reality and public opinion can only cause division and dissent.

Andrew Copson is Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association. 

THE ETHOS OF CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IS COHESIVE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

The ethos of Catholic schools is cohesive

Mr Allan Hayes raises some interesting questions about the nature of faith schools, but his focus on divisiveness makes me wonder whether he has missed the point of what is the nature of religious faith (Mailbox, February 13).

I can't speak for all faith schools, knowing nothing about Islamic or Hindu schools, but Christian schools at least serve to educate a child on the bedrock of charity.

We are taught to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself, the first command leading naturally to the other.

Individual failings do not alter the Christian call to love, to honour parents, to serve others, to be modest, dutiful, disciplined, patient, unselfish, etc. This is not divisive – it is cohesive.

Catholic schools further protect the child against the worst excesses of modern secularism, such as the horribly explicit sex material paraded before children as "education" and the attempt to redefine marriage into a choice that a man can make with another man, rather than the holy and sacramental union of a man and a woman which has children as its greatest gift.

This resistance to the numbing of conscience encouraged by a secular (social engineering) society is preserved in a true Catholic school, for the good of the children it teaches and for society as a whole.

As for selecting staff and students by their religion, Catholic schools have long accepted large numbers of non-Catholic children and, sadly, there are many Catholic teachers nowadays that do not actually practise their religion.

Francisca Martinez, Leicester

A DIVIDED SOCIETY LOOMS

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

A divided society looms

In my last article (First Person, January 5) I was optimistic about relations between religions and beliefs.

I had been meeting more people with different beliefs and had seen children from different backgrounds getting on with one another.

The latter is important: our children should be growing up together at school – Hindu children with Muslim children, Sikh children with humanist children, Catholics with Protestant, children indifferent to religion with those for whom it is central.

There are obvious difficulties because of the distribution of population in the city, but we should try.

Unfortunately, things are moving against us. Already, several city schools, Anglican, Catholic, Muslim and Hindu select pupils (and staff) by their religion and looking to the future, the Government's "free school" programme opens the way for many more such schools to be opened.

Under this programme, any group, local or not, can apply to set up a state-funded school in Leicester promoting one religion and giving preference to pupils and staff who belong to that religion.

Worse, there is no procedure laid down for letting us know about the application, for questioning it or for objecting to it – even the council can be kept in the dark – and the decisions are taken in London.

The programme is little over a year old and already in Leicester one school is up and running and others are being considered.

This is, of course only part of the bigger issue of the role of religion in society. What can be done?

I am, like other humanists and secularists, committed to joining with others in "promoting understanding and advancing harmonious cooperation", to quote the British Humanist Association constitution, and I have to ask my Anglican friends to think whether their Church was mistaken when in 2001 it took the decision to counter falling numbers by increasing the number of schools it controls and using schools more systematically to evangelise.

It has pursued this strategy and encouraged other religious groups to do the same.

It is now creating clusters of academies, and inviting other schools to become Anglican schools, and offering to take the place of local authorities in providing assistance – it is looking to be the biggest "provider" of education in the country.

This is not healthy for a democracy and it is being done using general taxes.

There is a steady drift towards a religiously divided country and city and politicisation of religion; and, very seriously in my view, efforts to create for our schools a vision of humanity encompassing both religious and non-religious views are being blocked.

We must work together.

Allan Hayes, Leicester

LEICESTER'S HINDU SCHOOL IS A BEACON, SAYS EDUCATION SECRETARY MICHAEL GOVE

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Leicester's Hindu school is a beacon, says Education Secretary Michael Gove 

By Joseph Watts, Parliamentary Correspondent 

Education Secretary Michael Gove praised a state-funded Hindu school as "a beacon" today, commending its founders' goal of helping children become "model British citizens". 

Mr Gove said the opening of Krishna Avanti School, in Evington, Leicester, demonstrated the extent to which Hindus had integrated into British society. 

He said: "I see Krishna Avanti School as a beacon and everything that I've heard about it makes me think that it's a fantastic option. 

"I know that there have been people who have been working with the school from north London who are Christian, Jewish and Hindu and I think that reflects the fact that British Hindus are an immensely well-integrated section of our society and are making fantastic accomplishments. 

"As well as recognising what is special and distinctive and cherishable about British Indian culture, it's also the case that the people behind this school want to make sure the children grow up as model British citizens." 

The school, which aims to have an eventual capacity of 420 pupils, opened on Thursday. 

Children of all faiths can attend the school, which currently has one Sikh and one Muslim pupil, though its first intake is predominantly Hindu. 

Head teacher Christopher Spall is a Christian. 

Pradip Gajjar, chairman of governors said: "I think Mr Gove captures our ethos very well. 

"Our whole objective is to use the backdrop of the national curriculum to provide educational excellence through academic achievement. 

"But we also want to focus on the character of the children and their spiritual experience." 

Free schools were introduced by the Government. They are state funded but outside local authority control. 

Any educational, community, faith or charity group can apply for funding to set up a school. Krishna Avanti was among the first 24 to open in the UK this month. 

Opponents have argued that by promoting faith schools the Government could encourage segregation or allow extremism to take root.

Mr Gove said: "We have been clear that faith schools must have admissions rules which mean they can only select 50 per cent of their students on the basis of their faith. 

"Secondly, we've been very clear that any extremist or fundamentalist organisation should not be allowed to open a school. 

"Thirdly, faith schools run by mainstream representatives of mainstream faiths are a force for good. 

"Church of England, Roman Catholic and Jewish schools have been part of the educational fabric for 100 years and they are hugely popular. 

"I don't see any reason why you can't have Sikh, Hindu and Muslim schools that are also exemplary. 

"If any school is proposed by anyone with a separatist agenda or taken over by anyone that's got a separatist agenda, we'll come down on them like a ton of bricks."

WHAT PRICE SECULARISM?

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

What price secularism?

The president of Leicester Secular Society, Mr Hayes (Mailbox, March 15), invites me to think again following my comments on his society's objection to faith schools following their tenets in relation to sex education.

Mr Hayes quotes the education Bill's passage that faith schools have been offered derogation. I will not contest the wording of that passage as it makes literary sense; how it is interpreted by non-faith schools is another debate.

As our society continues to move further away from religious tolerances and practices and further into a secular lifestyle, the spectre of disrespect, drunkenness and violence seems to fill the void so that "Broken Britain" is now a description used by politicians of our own country.

The issue of sex education has been on the education agenda for many years. For all of those years schools have taught pupils sex education, yet we face a situation of unprecedented promiscuity inherent in this country's younger citizens that leaves me and many of my fellow citizens, religious and agnostics alike, saddened. So, what price secularism, Mr Hayes?

As you asked, I have thought again and not surprisingly I cannot agree the decadence and selfishness that many years of secularism seems to have spawned is good for this, or any other country's people.

Some Mercury readers who are following this exchange may form the view that secularists believe religion equals bible thumping, oppressive ministers or priests and a rigid Victorian strictness of personal behaviour.

If that is the case, how very wrong it is. If society was to develop a sudden, but welcome, mass return to faith, the modern user-friendly moral guidance, citizenship, fun and humanist input a faith has to offer a family must go some way to improve general behaviour. I am not suggesting utopia would result, but it would reverse the decline of respect. Have faith, it would!

Stephen A Warden, Wigston