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It’s time for an end to the segregation of children by faith

Posted on September 5th, 2008 by bryan.
Categories: General.

As children across England and Wales returned to school this week, an eclectic mix of organisations joined forces to launch the Accord Coalition, which promotes inclusive schools and an end to special arrangements for state-funded faith schools.

The Coalition’s Declaration of Aims argues:-

• that in a pluralist, multi-cultural society, the State should promote tolerance and recognition of different values and beliefs;
• that schools should welcome all and be committed to non-discrimination; and
• that schools should promote a culture of questioning, of knowledge, of respect and of exploration of values, where students develop their own identities and sense of place in the world.

The Declaration continues, stating that State-funded schools should:-

• operate admissions policies that take no account of students’ - or their parents’ - religion or beliefs;
• operate recruitment and employment policies that do not discriminate on the grounds of religion or belief;
• follow an objective, fair and balanced syllabus for education about religions and non-religions beliefs; and
• provide their students with inclusive, inspiring and stimulating assemblies, in place of compulsory acts of worship.

‘The Guardian’s’ Polly Toynbee is also President of the British Humanist Association, a member of the Accord Coalition.  She used her most recent commentary piece to highlight and to oppose the (increasing) segregation of children by faith, especially in the era of the ‘Academy’.  Neither she nor the Coalition calls for anything extreme or radical - only that children, teachers and other school staff should be free from discrimination on the grounds of their religion or beliefs.

Toynbee writes that ‘class, ethnic and faith segregation are the most damaging reasons why the Accord Coalition needs to prevail’.  She adds: ‘The State can’t protect children from pernicious views and doctrines [about creationism, sexuality and women's rights] at home - but it has a duty to protect them in State schools’.  If only the State subscribed to that view.  Instead, we have 7,000 faith schools, with more opening every year in the form of Academies, which already discriminate against the majority by focusing much needed funding and expertise on the few.

Toynbee suggests that ‘faith schools may be Blair’s most damaging legacy’, yet their number continues to multiply with the permission of Parliament.  That’s why we have two choices: either to give credit where it’s due and to continue to despair about the undue and unfair influence of religious interest groups over our elected representatives; or to support the Accord Coalition and it Declaration of Aims.  I know what I will be doing!

To read Polly Toynbee’s commentary in full, click on the link below.

Faith schools may be Blair’s most damaging legacy (’The Guardian’, 2 September 2008)

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