.
Elder Daughter was about three, I suppose, and I had taken her to see my doctor for a routine check-up. My doctor asked me where I was going to send her to school. Without giving it a thought, I named the school – a small, middle class state-funded primary school attached to the church which we were attending fairly regularly.
“My children cannot go to that school”, she said.
I was baffled. I asked why not.
“Because we are Jews”, she said.
I looked at her, stunned into silence. I have never forgotten that conversation. My daughter did go to that school, but only for a term. My doctor has just retired, having worked to pay for private education for her three sons.
We live in a very pleasant pocket in a generally poor part of town. We live outside the catchment area for the best secondary school in town and in the catchment area for one of the poorest, sink schools in town. The neighbouring friend with four children is, however, lucky. Not because she can afford private education, but because all her children have Catholic baptism certificates and, therefore, their children can go to the excellent state-funded Catholic secondary school the other side of town.
Of around 21,000 schools in the UK, nearly 7,000 are “faith schools” funded by the state. The huge majority of faith schools are Church of England or Catholic primary schools. Other faith schools have only been allowed since 1997 whilst all other Protestant church schools surrendered their status as long ago as 1902. All faith schools have special freedoms including having regard to a person’s faith when making a staff appointment and determining the admissions policy. Only the Church of England has agreed that any new Anglican schools must as of this year allow one quarter of children to be selected on a non-faith basis. The Catholic Church continues to maintain that it will first and foremost plan new schools in order to meet the needs and demands of Catholic parents.
Faith background of children between 4 and 15 (2001 Census)
The 2001 Census showed a total of about 5.7 million children between 4 and 15, of whom just over 5 million were Christian and almost 400,000 Muslim. The 2005 School Census showed about 1.7 million pupils in state-maintained Christian faith schools and only 1,770 pupils in state-maintained Muslim faith schools. This means about 30% of Christians and 44% of Jews are educated in their own faith schools compared to only 0.4% of Muslim children. There are no Sikh or Hindu state-funded schools though a Hindu faith school will open in 2008. There is one Greek Orthodox school near Croydon, Surrey.
Despite legislation which prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, despite being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights which prohibits such discrimination, despite having brought those European rights home in the Human Rights Act 1998 which also outlaws discrimination, the UK government not only tolerates faith schools, but funds state schools, encourages faith schools even.
A very recent document presented jointly by the government and the faith school providers, is disingenuous if not downright misleading. In relation to admission, the “Faith in the system” report says this:
“We are committed to fair and open admission arrangements which are easy for parents to understand and that contribute to fair access for all families. The Government recognises and supports the right of faith schools that are their own admission authority to give priority for some or all of their places to children from the faith concerned when they are oversubscribed. The Government also recognises that where there are relatively few maintained schools of a particular faith to meet the demand for education in accordance with the tenets of that faith, those schools are more likely to be oversubscribed by children of the faith and have less scope to admit children not of the faith. However the Government welcomes the willingness of the faith school providers who have relatively few maintained schools in relation to the demand for education in accordance with the tenets of that faith to admit pupils not of the faith where circumstances allow.” (p16, my italics)
A recent review of government policy in relation to faith schools allowed the school governors to retain the right to set admissions policies. Some faith schools in some areas have enlightened admissions policies. Some faith schools are faith-blind in their admissions policies. But many are not. The question of whether a school should be able to teach a faith to their pupils is not at issue here. What is at issue is the right to a good education irrespective of your religion. If the good education is reserved exclusively for Christians because of an admission policy that discriminates against those whose parents have a different faith, or no faith, then that admissions policy needs to be changed or the public funding withdrawn.
In the town of 170,000 people where we live, there are many primary schools, but the best primary schools are those named after the saints, Mary, Margaret, John and so on. Most of those primary schools perform substantially above the national average for attainment. Most of those primary schools are heavily oversubscribed. It is impossible, in most of those primary schools, for a child who is not baptised into a particular faith or who does not have a close connection with a particular church, to get into the school.
Our choice of church had, like many other parents, been determined, at least partly, with an eye to securing our daughter a place at the school. That school that my elder daughter went to now has a new headmistress and the admissions policy has changed since we applied to the school. Now twenty places out of thirty are allocated on a sliding points scale which depends on the regularity of attendance at the attached church or another Christian church. Muslims, Jews, Hindus and atheists can all compete for the remaining ten places, with priority being given to those who already have a sibling at the school. I wonder, though, if it isn’t just window dressing. It seems to me that if you already have a sibling at the school, the odds are that you are a Christian anyway. Children of other faiths are still likely to come some way down the list for those ten places.
The argument from equality says that the present situation is unfair. Access to state-funded education should not be dependent upon your faith. The argument from partiality says that parents want to educate their children with others like them, with others that share the same faith and are unlikely to support a government that removes the privileged position of Christian children to better education. British parents are already complaining that their children have to compete for the precious spaces with recently arrived religious immigrants particularly from Portugal and Poland and from Africa.
The UK government, however, even goes so far as to maintain that it is a duty of the government under Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights to respect the rights of parents to ensure education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions. While it is impossible to deny that the government is bound by the Convention, nowhere does this require the government to fund faith schools. Article 2 is framed in negative terms – that the State shall not deny, rather than that the State shall guarantee respect for the right at issue. Specifically the Council of Europe guide to the Convention says “in general, this means the State is under no obligation to provide certain kinds of educational opportunities or to guarantee that every individual receives the education he or she desires” which is not what the “Faith in the system” report says. The European Court of Human Rights has previously found that this “negative” duty does mean that education should be available to all children without violation of the discrimination provision of Article 14 of the Convention. Article 14 provides:
“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”
It is unlawful under Section 49 of the Equality Act 2006 to discriminate against a child in relation to school admission on the basis of his or her religion. But the Act provides an exemption for faith schools. No such exemption exists in relation to the European Convention, however.
The government’s argument goes – if faith schools are good, so much the better: if children of other faiths are ruled out, then that is just too bad. Is the answer a compromise that recognises partiality but moves towards equality, if equality is not a reasonably achievable goal?
I imagine there are several factors at play in maintaining the status quo. Firstly, whatever the inequalities, the faith schools deliver a very high quality product which is generally the envy of other schools. The Government does not want to lose the ethos of these schools, nor the comparatively well educated future workers that the schools produce. The Government’s answer to allegations of unfairness to children of other faiths (not those of no faith, however) is to promote the creation of new faith schools, including Muslim and Hindu faith schools because, says the report, it recognises that the provision of such schools could “provide an important contribution to integration and empowerment of these communities”. How the provision of such segregating schools contributes to integration is something which the government alone knows. Nor am I persuaded. The government’s policy depends on religious minorities living together in large enough numbers to justify a school, which is not always the case nor necessarily a good thing.
I have a friend who is Muslim and who took over from my Jewish doctor at our practice. Her children could not go to most of the state-funded Christian schools in this town either. I am ashamed.
More:
Department for Education and Skills, School Admissions Code
11 comments
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October 8, 2007 at 8:54 am
Ismini
I am a Christian & all my children are baptised. We attend church regularly and yet my son was refused a place at one of the Catholic high schools in my town. As a result with no siblings there my second son did not stand a chance in being accepted either. However, I wonder if these faith schools are so good only because they keep uniformity in their registers. Although it discriminates it is a system that has worked and still delivers excellent results. So instead of changing the acceptance policies on faith school maybe we should be looking in improving the education system following the example of these schools.
October 8, 2007 at 2:10 pm
adifferentvoice
Thank you, Ismini, for commenting. Like you, I would love to see excellent state schools across the board, and then perhaps the present situation would not matter so much (though I still would not be in favour of the segregation it encourages). Being a school governor is a very positive way of doing that. I was a governor of a rural state secondary school outside our town, when my children were small. The school had only been an 11-16 school with the result that only about 40% of pupils stayed on after sixteen. We persuaded the local education authority to give the school a sixth form for 16-18 year olds with the result that staying on rates jumped – in a single year – to 80%. Having older pupils in the school also encouraged the younger pupils to be more aspirational. I think so much of a school is about its ethos, and governors can do a lot to foster a positive ethos – they recruit the head teacher, for example.
My teacher friend tells me that the school I described as a “sink school” has a very good atmosphere despite its catchment.
October 8, 2007 at 2:25 pm
adifferentvoice
Ever an optimist, here’s a link to a page about becoming a school governor for anyone who might be interested.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Schoolslearninganddevelopment/SchoolLife/DG_10038366
October 8, 2007 at 6:58 pm
adifferentvoice
Oooh, and just remembered, Ismini, running the parent/teacher association is a pretty good way to help too 😉 …
October 8, 2007 at 8:36 pm
ismini
debatable…better than nothing though
October 17, 2007 at 7:40 am
adifferentvoice
More on the BBC today. A new report shows that a huge number of parents would move and/or lie about their faith to get their children into their preferred school.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7047281.stm
March 3, 2008 at 4:41 pm
katie
me & my brother were baptised christian and in 2005 i got in to the local catholic school. i do not attend mass etc. we thoguht this was great at the time as it is meant to be the best school in our area. i got high marks in my year 6 SAT’s and this may be why. However my brother applied for the school to go to in 2008 and was refused as he is not catholic … but he has a sibling at the school. he is not extremley clever and this maybe why. also a bus stops right next to out house amd i cannot go on it because im not catholic
March 3, 2008 at 5:09 pm
adifferentvoice
Hi Katie. Thanks for commenting. I’d love to know how many other families have been affected by these admission policies. There’s been quite a bit more in the news about them recently – with David Cameron even endorsing parents who lie to get their child into a good school. Thing is, most parents would do almost anything to get their children a good education, but wouldn’t it be good if all children were assured of one, instead of it being a lottery?
May 20, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Simon
Thanks for stating this so well.
I have just begun to investigate this issue, and was shocked that the government has institutionalized discrimination, rather than deal with the issue of who owns our primary schools.
In the first case I looked at a school stated a “preference” for a Christian head master, for a state funded post. Had the preference read “preferably not a Jew, or a Muslim” I suspect people would have realized how discriminatory this issue is.
I’ve asked our local council to remove the advert from their website, as they have a legal duty not to promote discriminatory material.
May 23, 2008 at 9:55 pm
adifferentvoice
Simon,
Thanks for the comment. I have been at a loss as to how to take this forward. I don’t know if you will check back for any reply to your comment. If you do …
I’m not supposed to be politically active, though I don’t think my position is a party political one.
I have, however, realised that people are very “partial” about this issue, especially if they have primary school aged children and are Christians and live near good church schools. I mean, even David Cameron gave lying to get your child into a good school his endorsement.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3234697.ece
If one county council can insist that all church schools in its area have an open admissions policy, I don’t see why other county councils/metropolitan authorities could not follow suit. Should not follow suit. But then I am not partial and – as my blunt friends will point out regularly – am in the privileged position of being able to afford not to be. It does not make me a very good person to push the issue forwards.
There does seem to be more and more awareness of the issue – with teachers’ unions championing it, for example.
December 7, 2008 at 9:27 pm
A Different Voice
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