In a major speech yesterday, the Communities Minister Ruth Kelly launched the new Commission for Integration and Cohesion. She spelled out a significant move on the Government’s part to challenge its hitherto unquestioned policy on multiculturalism. (Ruth Kelly’s full speech: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5281572.stm .)
But it rapidly became clear that the one area that will not be examined by the new Commission is the part that religious schools play in dividing communities and encouraging separation. Ms Kelly maintained that “faith schools” give parents choice. Ms Kelly insisted that the government policy on religious schools would not be changed or even questioned. She said that there was a programme of “twinning” schools to overcome the problem of religious apartheid.
Terry Sanderson, vice president of the National Secular Society, said: “This is folly. There is almost universal agreement outside the government and the self-serving religious bodies that religious schools are a disastrous element in social division. Once again, the Government seems unable to go the whole hog and accept that it has made a mistake with this policy of expanding the number of religious schools. Instead it sets up a commission to find out what to do about the disaffected and separate communities in Britain and forbids it from looking at one of the major areas that encourages social apartheid. It is madness.”
Appearing on BBC news, the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, Mohammed Abdul Bari, said that “faith schools” were wanted by the Muslim community, and because there were so many Christian schools, there was no just reason why they should not have them.
But Keith Porteous Wood argues that the answer is not more, but less religious schools. “The Government must start the process of dismantling the system of religious schools in this country. With the will, it can be done, and for all our sakes, it must be done.”