Concerns about the separatist and divisive nature of
“faith schools” are being raised around the country as the Government’s
“free schools” initiative opens the doors to many more.
In
Leicester, the first Hindu “faith school” is to open in September 2011
as a “free school”.
The Krishna-Avanti School will provide 420 places
for children aged four to eleven years old.
Pradip
Gajjar, project director for the educational charity I-Foundation, and
the school, said the school hoped to invest in the “spirituality,
philosophy and culture” of Hinduism in Leicester, “the seat of the Hindu
community here in the UK”.
The school claims that
admission policy intends to bring in 50% of the students from Hindu
families and 50% from a mixture of other diverse backgrounds. They have
not explained, however, how they are going to find 210 families from a
Christian, Muslim, Sikh or non-religious background who would want their
children raised in such a religious “ethos”.
Mr
Gajjar would like us to think that: “Our future generations can continue
in the same pride that our parents and our grandparents brought to this
country, yet remain embedded within the Hindu values”.
Birmingham
Meanwhile,
councillors in Birmingham are raising concerns with the Government
about the number of religious organisations that are applying to set up
“free schools” in the city.
Free schools, which are independent of the
city council, can be opened by charities, universities, faith groups,
teachers, businesses, parents or existing schools in the independent
sector.
Up to 11 organisations in Birmingham have
applied to the Department of Education to set up “free schools”, many of
them with a religious character.
The City Council has warned the
Department for Education that this proliferation of religious schools
will increase division.
Education Secretary Michael
Gove announced in September that Nishkam Education Trust had been given
initial approval to open a primary and a secondary school in Birmingham
which will both have links with a major Sikh temple in Handsworth.
In
response to questioning from Birmingham’s Hall Green MP, Roger Godsiff
(Lab), Ministers revealed that another ten groups have submitted
proposals and six of these are from his constituency.
Mr Godsiff said:
“I suspect a lot of them will be for faith schools. I am sceptical about
the concept of free schools. They seem to be based on the assumption
that if you get rid of the role of local education authorities, then
anything that replaces them must be better.”
Councillor
Lawrence said he was not aware of all the proposals, as applications
were made to the Department for Education. He told the Birmingham Mail:
“Some of the proposals I do know of are for religious schools which
will not be inclusive and we have made our concerns clear to the
department.”
Free schools are able to set their own
pay and conditions for staff, set their own curriculum and change the
length of terms and school days.
Northern Ireland
Secondary
schools in Northern Ireland are being asked to ditch their religious
labels and transform to integrated status. Just five secondary schools
in the North have transformed in the last 20 years, the most recent
being Parkhall College in Antrim last year.
In
Northern Ireland, the only state “faith” schools are Catholic – but the
majority of state schools are technically “non-denominational” and in
essence Protestant. Transformation is the process by which existing
schools can vote by parental ballot to join the integrated sector.
They
must work towards having a mix of students from both Catholic and
Protestant faiths.
To date, only schools in the non-Catholic
state-controlled sector have transformed.
But
Catholic education heads are resistant to the changes, saying the
process is not viable for their own institutions and criticise it as a
route for survival for controlled schools threatened with closure.
Two
years ago, the Integrated Education Fund (IEF) revealed ambitious plans
to “transform” 30 more schools to integrated status by 2014. Since
then, however, just one secondary has changed its status.
Now
the IEF is hoping to encourage schools once again to consider
transformation. A new booklet, Exploring Transformation, has been sent
to all post-primary schools in the North.
The IEF said that the majority
of schools were already involved in some cross-community activity. The
booklet is designed to help schools willing to take a further step by
detailing the support available, including grants of up to £30,000.
Republic of Ireland
Over
the border in the Republic, the Irish Government has been warned that
permitting religion — particularly Catholicism — to play such a major
role in its schools may lay it open to charges of human rights abuses.
The
Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) last week issued a discussion
paper posing a number of questions about the prominence of religion in
schools, saying that allowing pupils from minority faiths or none to opt
out of religious instruction may not be enough to rectify the situation
because the Catholic Church’s ethos permeates the day-to-day life of
most schools, a discussion paper has said.
Ireland’s
record on religion in schools will also come under scrutiny next year
during a review by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
IHRC
president Maurice Manning pulled no punches: “To put it somewhat
baldly, the core issue to be discussed concerns whether religion has a
place in the classroom and, if so, what role should it play”.
He added
that the Irish position faced challenges under the European Convention
on Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The
discussion paper particularly focussed on the rights of children in a
rural setting who have no option but to attend a religious-ethos school.
At primary level, Catholic schools are required to devote
two-and-a-half hours per week to religious instruction, and two hours
even at secondary level.
In the multi-denominational
Educate Together schools, the issue of religious instruction is regarded
as a matter for parents and, where it takes place, it is done outside
of school hours. Pupils may take Religious Education as a subject in
Junior and Leaving Cert exams.
While that involves a general study of
world religions and beliefs, it does not involve an assessment of a
student’s personal faith or commitment.
The IHCR
paper notes that provision is made for the right of parents to withdraw
their children from any instruction that conflicts with their own
convictions.
However, because of the way that religion might informally
permeate the school day in denominational schools, this right would not
necessarily insulate such pupils from receiving religious education
informally, it stated.
Dr Manning said the place of
religion in the classroom was an issue with which all countries were
grappling, but Ireland was somewhat unique internationally because of
the prominence religious orders played in Irish education.
Even now, 92
per cent of primary schools in Ireland are controlled by the Catholic
Church.
Just over 2 percent of schools are inter-denominational or
multi-denominational, and there are no non-denominational schools.
Keith
Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society,
said: “Much of what the IHRC says would be applicable in Britain where
religion plays far too great a role in our education system. The Irish
Government has been made well aware of the dangers that permitting the
education system to be dominated by one version of one faith can pose.
The same must be acknowledged in England and Wales.”
The
paper was launched at a conference held in association with the School
of Law at Trinity College Dublin, which kick-started a national
consultation process.
Dr Manning confirmed that after
the consultation process was complete, at the end of January, the IHRC
would make recommendations to the Government on the measures required
for the State to meet its human rights obligations in this area.
SIC: NSS/UK