09 September 2016

Facilitating More Religious Segregation In Faith Schools Can Only Harm Social Cohesion

In a move devoid of any common sense, Theresa May’s government looks set to capitulate to the demands of religious groups by relaxing admissions rules for faith-based academies, allowing them to select all pupils along religious lines.

It’s hard to think of a more retrograde policy than the facilitation of greater religious segregation of children and young people in our education system.

What are we to make of the Government’s warnings about schoolchildren from minority religious backgrounds having little or no understanding of others, when their policies seem destined to exacerbate exactly that?

Only last year the schools minister Lord Nash said the Government had “no plans to review the 50% limit for faith-based admissions to free schools”, describing the cap as “an important way of supporting these schools to be inclusive and to meet the needs of a broad mix of families”.

So what changed? [The Huffington Post UK] Read more