Saturday, May 07, 2011

What choice for faith schools? (Contribution)

The bishop of Oxford, John Pritchard, caused a stir when he said that Church of England schools should aim for no more than 10% of their children to be from Christian families. 

Is this a long-overdue gesture towards fairness, or is it a proposal for institutional suicide? 

The Roman Catholic church has fought off successfully any suggestion that it should water down the faith commitment required to enter the schools it operates. 

Despite this, there are many Christian schools in areas of large-scale Muslim settlement that have a majority of Muslim children: in some cases approaching 100%.

So, on what basis should faith schools be allowed to choose children when they are oversubscribed? 

And who should decide this?