Q&A: Faith schools

The Education Secretary has scrapped plans to force new faith schools in England to increase the amount of students it accepts from other faiths.

Under the plans, such schools would have had to give up to 25 per cent of their places to those from outside the faith.

Alan Johnson's decision has been criticised as a U-turn but he insists that such a move was not needed due to a voluntary agreement with the Catholic Church and Church of England.

How many faith state schools are there in England?
There are around 7,000 faith schools in the country, which included 6,384 primary schools and 589 secondary schools.

Of these, 4,646 are Church of England, 2,041 Roman Catholic, 37 Jewish, eight Muslim, two Sikh, one Greek Orthodox and one Seventh Day Adventist.

Until Labour was elected in 1997, all state faith schools were Christian or Jewish.

Why are they important?
When Tony Blair came into power in 1997, he considered faith schools as important in raising educational standards across the country. Indeed a white paper in 2001 said: "We wish to welcome faith schools, with their distinctive ethos and character, into the maintained (state) sector, where there is clear local agreement."

Who pays for them and what do they teach?
You do, more or less. The state pays 85 per cent of capital costs. All have to teach the national curriculum. For religious education, around 57 per cent of faith schools (voluntary-aided) teach their own faith.

The remaining 43 per cent (voluntary-controlled or foundation schools) teach the locally agreed religious education syllabus, which has a more multi-ethnic approach.

So what did religious leaders and other groups think of the idea of allowing more students into the school from outside the faith?
There was almost universal condemnation. The Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, had branded Mr Johnson's proposed scheme as "ill-thought-out, unworkable, contradictory of empirical evidence and deeply insulting".

Leading Jewish educationalist Rabbi James Kennard said the argument was being framed through a CoE prism and that students of other faiths would destroy the unique fabric of Jewish schools.

Canon John Hall, the CofE's chief education officer welcomed the U-turn and Nick Gibb, the Conservative schools spokesman, said: it should be up to schools to decide.

Continued...

But does educating children separately lead to social and religious divisions?
Yes, say critics, including the National Secular Society, which claims 80 per cent of the population disapprove of faith schools. Why should people, the argument goes, pay for schools through their local taxes, that many children are barred from entering?

Also, are the higher GCSE and A-level pass rates which are often cited as proof of the better education faith schools can provide, due to the special nature of faith schools, or simply because pupils are from wealthier backgrounds from what is essentially a selection process on the grounds of religion.

Another downside is the often repeated tales of middle class parents moving into an area, feigning an interest in a religion they may no longer practice just to get their children into a faith school.

This has knock-on effects of pricing local people out of housing.

Not everyone is happy about Mr Johnson's U-turn though, right?
It could be seen as some of the most effective campaigning in recent memory to stop a government policy in its tracks.

Former education secretary Lord Baker, who had himself proposed a similar amendment when he was in power, described the turn-around as the "fastest U-turn in history".

He suggested Archbishop Nichols had been running a very deceptive campaign based on the fact that the legislation wouold appply to all religious schools, not just new ones.

He says the real issue are the 120 Muslim schools seeking state aid and that it was right they should have a degree of integration in order avoid the growth of ghettos.

Related links
Religion reports

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