As a Liberal I believe that parents or guardians have a right to educate their offspring in the tenets and practices of their religion if they have one. However, such “education” should be at their or their religious institutions’ expense. It should take place outside the formal state system, at Sunday School, Saturday School, or in the evenings. If faith groups and parents absolutely insist on a complete alternative to a secular full-time education offered by the state, they can run their own schools, but at their expense and not with the help of public funds.
I’m aware that for centuries the Church was just about the only provider of education in this country, up to and including university level – hence all those lovey chapels and talented choirs at the Oxbridge colleges. And, as a vestigial remnant of the system of mass education that has developed there remain 4 500 C of E schools in England (about a quarter of the total), nearly 2000 RC schools, 139 run by other Christian faiths, along with 50 Jewish schools to which can now be added 34 Muslim, 12 Sikh and two Hindu faith schools.
But this tradition and the recent additions are looking to the past. We can be duly grateful for them, as I am. I was educated in a church school and have taught in two of them. But today they are not only irrelevant but a positive hindrance to our development of a relaxed, co-operative multi-faith society.
That is why today’s announcement by the Conservative Government that the 50% cap on selection restricted to members of the faith in any new faith school is a step backwards. The progressive way forward is for all faith schools to be gradually phased out or to become exclusively faith maintained.
It is interesting to see the importance of the Liberal Democrats in our attitude to this policy. Apparently during the Coalition (2010 to 15) the Conservatives wanted to promote the expansion of faith schools. The Liberal Democrats complied, but only with the provision that 50% of the places should be available to pupils not of the faith. This is the sort of sensible compromise which coalition government produces. The majority partner (305 seats) wishes to take a step in a direction the other thinks is misguided, the minority party (57 seats, I think it was) can’t stop it but limits what it sees as the damaging effect.
Sir Ed Davey has had the courage to condemn the present Tory move. I’m not aware of Labour’s official response, but Ruth Kelly, their Education Secretary under Tony Blair, is enthusiastically in favour of it.
As we used to say, “Which twin is the Tory?”