Notes from a discussion at a North London AWL branch meeting, introduced by Jean Lane.

What are the reasons for the growth in the movement for single-faith schools?
Why do socialists oppose this?

Sir Peter Vardy is a right-wing Christian fundamentalist, who is a millionaire through his car business. He runs the Vardy Foundation and its education arm, the Emmanuel Schools Foundation. He got together with a right-wing educationalist, and used the Tory view of school 'independence' to take over a state school. The New Labour government's policy allows a private sponsor such as Vardy to set up a new school or take over a 'failing' school. The sponsor puts in an amount of money (say, £2m), then the government puts in a lot more (say, £20m). The sponsor gets significant control over the school, including control over the school's name, staff, governors, pay and conditions, curriculum, policy and ethos.

Through this mechanism, Vardy was able to set up Emmanuel College in Gateshead, which was opened by Tony Blair. Creationism is taught as being of equal value to scientific theories of evolution. Harry Potter is banned from the school library because it allegedly encourages Satanism; all pupils have a personal-issue Bible which they must carry with them at all times. There is a high degree of regimentation, very strict discipline, and dress code.

Lots of working-class parents fear failing schools and lack of discipline, and may find this sort of regime attractive. But it is a disaster for children.

(Non-religious) State education is far from perfect. It is a 'sausage machine' to turn out workers, and is dominated by testing, league tables etc. But there are good things happening too, largely through the hard work and determination of teaching staff. Teachers have won the space to encourage students' self-respect, self-discipline, desire to learn, and sense of self and place in the world. They can hold interesting debates and education on issues such as citizenship, PSHE, and social issues.

These things are threatened by the rise in religious-based education and single-faith schools.

For kids, going to school should be about interacting with the world as it exists, in all its diversity. So segregating schooling through single-faith or single-sex schools is wrong.

Some parents go to the length of attending church just in order to get their kids into church schools. For some, this is about the appeal of discipline or of 'good performance' eg. in league tables. But for some white parents, it can be a way of getting your kids into a majority-white school. The existence of single-faith schools is de facto segregating education by enabling parents to use religion as a cover for race.

Faith schools - especially in the new 'academy' system - are able to select, and to exclude, pupils in order to become an 'elite' school with 'good' exam results. But this is not because religious education is better education, it is because the system is set up so that they can manipulate it.

Tony Blair fully supports these developments. As does new Education Secretary Ruth Kelly, who is a supporter of an eccentric and reactionary Catholic sect, Opus Dei.

Discussion:

Janine: I agree with Jean about single-faith schools leading to racial segregation. For example, in a mixed white/Asian area, replacing secular schools with a Christian school and a Muslim school will have the result of replacing racially-mixed schools with a 'white' school and an 'Asian' school. You will then get a generation of white kids growing up with no Asian friends, and a generation of Asian kids growing up with no white friends. Then you will get racism amongst young adults, which can easily become racist violence.

Some people argue that we should have single-faith schools because parents have the right to bring up kids in their own faith. For example, RMT General Secretary Bob Crow argues this. I'd disagree with that for two reasons. Firstly, there is a limit to the rights that parents have over kids: children have rights too, including the right to an objective, critical, unbiased education. Secondly, even if parents have the right to (try to) pass on their beliefs to their children, they have no right to expect the state to do it for them by allowing religions to run schools.

Dave: The academy system is anti-egalitarian and undemocratic, with school management unelected and unaccountable.

Jean is right about diversity in schools, but there is a degree to which you will not meet the full diversity of society in school, because some schools are located in working-class areas, some in affluent areas, some in cities, some in villages. But this is all the more reason that government policy should not make the situation worse by encouraging even more forms of segregation.

There are issues around equality for people from different faiths/traditions in access to education. For example, the school week/year is based around Christian observation, which is not fair to non-Christians and can push out some religious minorities.

Secularism is about keeping the state and religion separate, and not privileging religion. It is not about the state being actively anti-religion.