Secularism

No child left behind

One of the most disappointing things about this Labour government has been its pandering to the religious of all persuasions over education, although they seem to be re-orientating themselves. Here’s more evidence that faith schools are a bad idea:

“Our findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the more contact children have with other ethnic groups, the more cross-group friendships they will have and the less prejudiced they will be”

One trade union member, Wesley Paxton, is calling the establishment of new faith schools as divisive. Of course, the problem is framed as one arising from the alleged self-segregating qualities of the Muslim community, both in terms of the comments from Paxton, and the choice of picture in this Daily Mail story.

I’d much rather we had a level playing field in this area. According to the Telegraph:

  • 9 Muslim schools
  • 1 Hindu school
  • 3 Sikh schools
  • 38 Jewish schools.
  • 6,750 Christian schools

Nationalise the lot, and if the populace wants to have schools that discriminate, then let them discriminate not on the basis of skin, or magical beliefs, but on academic ability. Ahh, you say, but no-one is concerned about Sikh schools and Jewish schools and integration, the problem is purely with Islamic schools (susceptible to the McJihad tendency from Saudi). Why punish other faith groups?

There may be some limited truth in this, in that no one is overly concerned with Hindu terrorism in the UK, or extremist radical Christians beheading people (apart from the BBC drama department), but this should be a matter of principle, not a discriminatory action against a faith group which would feed into the very world view you are trying to counter. Like blasphemy before it, we need to create a level playground.

Get rid of the lot of them.