Who wants faith schools? Lord Adonis apparently. Lord Adonis, in case you didn't know, is Tony Blair's unelected chum, who seems to have control of education policy in the UK. Now what does he know about education? Has he been a teacher or had any experience of schools apart from being a pupil? Not according to Wikipedia. But isn't that just what you would expect from New Labour - don't bother about any kind of useful expertise - just parachute your mates in to run the country. Tony knows best. Anyway, apparently his Lordship likes 'Faith' schools, and because he likes them we all have to have them.
Not only that, but its OK to discriminate against teachers who are not Christians (or Jews or Muslims) by not giving them jobs in faith schools. You can't discriminate on the basis of gender, sexuality or race but its now quite legal to say - " We are not going to give you this job because you are an atheist". So are we now going to have that grotesque farce whereby teachers are going to have to pretend to be Christian to get a job - just as parents have to - to get their children into school? All of this is utterly unacceptable and is being foisted on the English people. Its something we just don't want. What the hell are people in the Labour party doing allowing this to happen!
Taxpayers money should not be used to promote religious interests. And that includes faith schools. Its simple we need, and want a secular state school system. Just 2% of people in England a regular churchgoers - this is not a christian society much as the faith brigade would like us all to believe.
We had a Tory government which neglected the state school system because of antipathy and now we have a New labour government forcing faith schools on us dishonestly whilst making false claims that such schools are better.
Fortunately, not all Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths are narrow minded enough to want segregated schools and communities. A group called Accord is working to promote a secular education system bringing people of all faiths and none together. They deserve our support. Lets work together to provide schools for all our children.
Such a thought poses the serious risk that we push the faith school even further underground in the private sector......... We need to abolish the private sector, first and foremost, to get away from a two-tier education system.
ReplyDeleteThen, and only then, do we push for secular schools........
Joe D
I have to disagree. I think we have to stop the faith school bandwagon now before these schools become entrenched.
ReplyDeleteI can agree to disagree, on the basis that we're almost agreeing!
ReplyDeleteWe have a plethore of faith schools operating in the private sector, and attempts to force the state side alone would still allow this avenue.
Abolition of the private sector would afford us more control of the situation.
I'm not familiar with Accord, so thanks for the prompt on that.
Joe D
Sorry - this is incorrect. What you want is a secular state education system.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are speaking as the royal "we"? Or you consider that you have all the answers.....?
Dan
No I don't have all the answers. Am I wrong when I say that 'we' i.e. most people in Britain want a secular education system? I'm confident I'm right - particularly since many religious people also want a secular education system as you'll see if you visit the Accord website.
ReplyDeleteIf I am wrong where is the popular groundswell of opinion for faith schools? Are people lobbying their MPs in favour of faith schools? Do political candidates get elected on a faith schools ticket? If you have heard of any please let us know who they are. Please support your argument by bringing forward some evidence.