Matter of faith: Creationism at the taxpayers' expense, The Guardian, 9/3/02

Emmanuel College in Gateshead is over-subscribed, with three children applying for every place. Parents are impressed by its excellent Ofsted reports and good results. The achievements of this city technology college have rightly been acknowledged by the Labour government and it has won beacon status. A sister school is set to open in Middlesbrough in 2003 and there could be another five, thanks to the munificence of Emmanuel College's main backer, Sir Peter Vardy, who has put the profits of his 80 car dealerships into charities devoted to education and children.

Admirable you might say, and so it is in many respects, but Sir Peter Vardy is an evangelical Christian, as are many of the staff of Emmanuel College, and it is the latter's strong religious beliefs which are clearly influencing the children's scientific education. The headteacher argues that evolution and creationism are both "faith positions". Several senior staff have published material on teaching creationism. A conference at the school this weekend stars the head of Answers in Genesis, a leading proponent of American creationist Christianity, which has, until now, failed to gain ground on this side of the Atlantic.

Understandably, Professor Richard Dawkins is incensed at the idea of creationism being taught to children at the taxpayers' expense. However, many parents in Gateshead are unperturbed, and understandably more interested in good results than in details of the biology syllabus. Meanwhile, the motives of the Vardy Foundation are quite clear: a seamless combination of educating while exposing a new generation of souls to Christian evangelicalism. The case graphically shows up all the paradoxes of the government's current enthusiasm for faith schools. The Department of Education is fast finding itself in a quagmire of controversial judgments about what forms of religious education are acceptable and what are not.

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"Keep out the priests", The Economist, 8/12/01

The issue is not whether people should be allowed to educate their children according to whatever religion they choose. Certainly they should, so long as they give their children a decent amount of real education at the same time as imbuing them with ancient beliefs and superstitions. The issue is whether state-funded education should be in the hands of religious organisations. It shouldn't.

Mr Blair's motives in handing over more of the education budget to the priests is unclear. It may be that, as a Christian, he thinks it right to impose his views on other people's children. If so, he is wrong. It may be that he thinks that religious schools deliver better education than secular schools. If so he hasn't looked at the facts very carefully. It may be that he sees expanding religious schools as a backdoor way of promoting selective education. Selection is a contentious issue for the Labour Party, and under the current system religious schools are allowed to select pupils and secular schools are not. If that is his motive, he would do better to confront the selection issue head-on, for handing over the children to the preachers is wrong in principle and dangerous in practice.

Belief is not the business of the state

Religious schools discriminate against people on the basis of their beliefs. They give preference to those who adhere to their particular form of religion, often requiring a letter form a priest attesting to parents' devotion. That explains why Britain's churches are full of the mothers of small children, stumbling their way through unfamiliar liturgies in the hope of persuading the religious authorities that they are holy enough to pass the test. A state-financed education system should cater to everyone equally, irrespective of their faith.

Every religion believes that it has a monopoly on truth. By paying for religious schools, the state is spending taxpayers' money to help schools promote on set of beliefs over another. But it ought not to be the business of the state to interfere in these matters, either by suppressing or promoting, particular religions. Most decent countries agree on that point these days. A few, including Afghanistan and Britain, do not.

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Times Education Supplement leader, 30/11/01

Public doubts about religion …it is also true that establishing Muslim schools in areas where the racial cauldron is still bubbling could be potentially disastrous. For once the Government should sit on its hands. If it waits another year it will have value-added performance tables that may show whether faith schools really are more effective once social background factors are taken into account. But if it wants to do something positive in the meantime it can act on the recommendations of the recent Home Office study that suggested state schools could do even more to accommodate religious diversity. Changing the culture of existing schools rather than creating new ones is unlikely to make headlines, but it might help to heal the rifts in our society.

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Ministers now need to proceed cautiously on faith-based schools, The Times leader, 23/11/01

…worrying events at home - race-based rioting in Oldham and Burnley - as well as international developments over the past two months demand a degree of extra caution. The Education secretary has conceded this in part by insisting that any new faith-based schools would have to demonstrate that they were committed to an "inclusive" approach in their dealings with the wider community to secure her blessing. This is fine in theory, but whether it will work in practice is another matter…There is the chance …that… schools such as these will amplify a process by which one part of the British population becomes steadily detached from the remainder…

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Religious schools must integrate in the community, The Guardian, 14/11/01

Estelle Morris, the education secretary, will today try to cool the growing controversy over single faith schools by announcing that she will issue guidance requiring their integration with the community. In a speech to the Church of England general synod, she will say that single faith schools in the state maintained sector must be part of "the local family of schools" if they are to continue to get state support. She will amend the advice to school organisation committees to persuade them to avoid rigid selection based on religion… The minister will welcome the Church of England Dearing report on church schools recommending admission policies serve the entire community… Ms Morris is also expected to point out that any faith school in the maintained sector will be inspected regularly by Ofsted, which must ensure schools do not breach the Race Relations Act. The local government association has been calling for a public inquiry into the relationship between religious and state schools, pointing out the potential isolation of Muslims and other groups. Gurbux Singh, the chairman of the commission for racial equality, has warned that single faith schools could damage multi-culturalism. .. But on Labour's national executive there have been growing concerns over the enthusiasm for faith schools, since local politicians fear that the schools will add to the isolation of immigrant communities and undermine the local education authorities.

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"Christian values? Humbug!", New Statesman, 15/10/01

Take the Roman Catholic London Oratory School, whose pupils include the sons of Tony Blair and his government colleague Harriet Harman. Ten-year-old applicants are interviewed, together with their parents. In theory, it's a non-selective school, and the interview is simply to check that the boy and his parents are practising Catholics, But a call to their parish priest could establish that, and in reality the interview has a much deeper purpose. "The interview," says the prospectus, "is an important and decisive part of the admission procedure, and its function is to assess Catholiciity, practice and commitment and whether the aims , attitudes and expectations of the parents and the boy are in harmony with those of the school" It could also be used to assess the parents' social status. Moreover the school looks at the boy's primary school record, to check that he has consistently achieved A or B grades for effort in all subjects…

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"Think again about faith-based schools", The Independent leader, 26/9/01

There are encouraging signs that the Government may be having second thoughts about its enthusiasm for promoting faith-based schools. Some cabinet ministers have apparently found in the current crisis, reason to look again at the implications for a society in which, say, Muslim and Christian children do not share the schoolroom and do not grow up together. People such as Frank Dobson and Bill Morris have voiced their fears. They are right to be worried.

At the very least, faith-based schools can create resentments and inequalities where none existed. The inequity is clear: such schools, by their nature, serve only one section of the community. As a pupil, if your parents happen to be non-believers or belong to a faith other than the one that has established a school nearby, then you are at least deprived of choice and, at worst, you lose the opportunity to have a decent education. It is also encourages grotesque distortions in behaviour, such as parents lying about their religious beliefs to place their offspring in the only decent school in the neighbourhood. Or, children being transported across whole cities, supposedly because of the fervency of their parents' faith, but in reality simply to escape a borough or catchment area with an abysmal academic record. Faith-based schooling often degenerates into a scam paid for by all taxpayers, including the poor, but operated principally for the benefit of the prosperous and articulate middle classes. That is not equality of opportunity. If religious groups want to set up their own schools, they should also provide the funding.

We need look no further than Northern Ireland to survey the potential damage such a system can inflict on the fabric of a society. Many of the Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland produce impressive exam results. They also reinforce sectarian division, as we have seen most graphically in the violence around the Holy Cross school in Belfast. We should be wary of the effects on places like Bradford or Bolton of a proliferation of faith-based schooling which could rapidly become the norm rather than the exception.

None of this is to suggest that children should not be allowed to learn about their faith and to worship in their own way. Schools should allow that freedom. It is to make a plea for children to learn together about the richness of the world's faiths. Better that than separate development.

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The Observer leader, 9/9/01

A child brought up without religion can certainly be a moral human being. And in a multicultural society, we need to develop a secular morality - of equality, honesty, fairness - which can unify, rather than divide, as religions have done so often in the past and still do, as last week's events outside a Northern Ireland school have shown. But championing this secular morality requires confidence and bravery. It will mean that faith will become a wholly private matter, not subject to either state interference or sponsorship.

It is regrettable that, just as society recognises this, politicians are showing themselves as keen as ever to kowtow to some religious groups. It is ludicrous that Ministers should be considering more, not fewer, faith-based schools…

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The Independent leader, 6/9/01

It is disappointing, too, that the Government is still sticking with its idea of allowing an expansion in the number of church schools despite widespread fears that it will lead to greater segregation between youngsters of different ethnic groups. although the difficulties of children walking to school in Belfast is an extreme example of what can happen when there is a sectarian divide in education, and there is no evidence of anything approaching such violence on the mainland. The very fact that the White Paper is launched on the same day as events take a turn for the worse outside the Holy Cross primary school should give pause for thought.

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The Guardian leader, 8/8/01

David Blunkett travels to Bradford today. The new home secretary is well qualified to make this post-riot tour. First, because of his familiarity with northern urban life; second, and more pertinently, because education, which was his previous cabinet responsibility, played a crucial role in generating the underlying social tensions that led to two bouts of serious civil unrest in one year in the Yorkshire city. Estelle Morris, his successor as education secretary, has sensibly concluded ministers "need to do some serious thinking" about their plans to extend faith schools. In a report which was commissioned before July's civil unrest, but published immediately afterwards, Lord Ouseley, former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, suggested fragmentation of Bradford's schools on racial, cultural and faith lines played a key role in heightening racial tensions in the city. He concluded that "schools are a key part of the failure…" … at the very least, the home secretary should be requiring the expansion of faith schools to be put on ice, while the consequences are examined. Whatever else happens, all schools should be required to teach multi-faith religious education.

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The Sunday Times leader on Bradford, 15/7/01

AT THE HEART OF THE VIOLENCE, however, is division… In many secondary schools there is "virtual apartheid". In Northern Ireland it was recognised long ago that if you divide people as children, they will remain divided for life. In France, where teachers have refused to teach pupils wearing Muslim headscarves, the determination to keep religion out of the classroom has not prevented racial tension but it is an important step in the right direction. In Britain the opposite is happening. The government's education strategy is explicitly to encourage more religious schools on the grounds that Muslims deserve the same treatment as Catholics or the Church of England. In doing so the government is storing up trouble for the future and further raising the possibility that some of Britain's cities will come increasingly to resemble Northern Ireland.

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Leader, Times Education Supplement, 22/6/01

Any politician who has even a rudimentary grasp of the role played by religious schools in the history of Northern Ireland knows the danger of educating children in a segregated system… as the head of one of the Oldham schools admits with astonishing candour, the religious beliefs of many of the middle class parents who secure places there vanished the moment the children leave school… Children should never be educated in religious ghettos.

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