Exemption from lobbying restrictions highlight faith school privileges

February 26, 2016

The Accord Coalition has cited the omission of state funded faith schools from new government regulations that prevent organisations that receive government grants from using the funds to undertake activity to influence public policy or legislation, as demonstrative of the preference show by government to some faith school sponsors. Announced earlier this month, the restrictions will be included in grant funding agreements from May 2016 onwards.

Chair of the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘State funded faith schools have become a political equivalent of the USA’s National Rifle Association in terms of enjoying special protections and deferential treatment. Despite the broad consensus and pressing evidence in favour of making changes, such as around reducing religious selection in pupil admissions and reforming Religious Education, laws and government policy continue to be set in ways that advance narrow interests of some faith schools and their sponsors, and which are to wider detriment.’

‘Faith school’s have become the country’s biggest and most powerful state funded lobby group, but are not included in new funding regulations. Given the deference shown by successive governments, the public should feel entitled ask to what extent do Ministers have a personal preference in applying double standards when it comes to faith schools, and to what extent do they feel they have no choice?’

‘Current faith schools policy is failing to bring out the best of us in range of ways. Not only is it leading to segregation and undermining integration, so frustrating the development of a more inclusive society, but the current disproportionate influence of faith school sponsors is undermining the healthy working of our liberal democracy.’

Progress frustrated and increased public subsidy

When the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP took office as Secretary of State for Education in the summer of 2010, his first meeting was with the Church of England Board of Education. His second was with the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales. The two bodies represent over 95% of the state funded faith schools in England.

Despite major changes in schools policy over success decades, legal arrangements around the provision of Religious Education and Collective Worship in schools in England have remained largely unreformed since 1944, while funding arrangements around faith schools have however changed significantly. That year state funded faith schools joined the state funded systems in England and Wales, and most were required to meet half of their capital costs. However, over time and with no public debate, the expected rate of contribution by faith schools towards their costs has been repeatedly reduced. Academy faith schools now have all their costs met by the tax payer. Similarly, many faith school sponsors recoup costs from their state funded schools, such as through charging them for management services.

The 2010 Equality Act was a milestone in the advancement of human rights, but faith schools were granted special exemptions to continue to be able to religiously discriminate in their pupil admissions and staff employment policies. The Elementary Education Act 1870 established state schools in England and Wales for the first time and prevented the newly state funded schools from selecting pupils on the grounds of children’s religious observance or belief. This protection against religious discrimination at state funded schools has therefore regressed since the Victorian era, to accommodate religiously selective schools.

Schools used for political and sectional interest

State funded faith schools have been shown to operate in ways that are overtly political and in the explicit interest of their sponsors. In 2001 the Church of England published ‘The Way Ahead: Church of England schools in the new millennium’. Produced by the Church’s Church Schools Review Group, it set out the Church’s policy towards its schools, seeing them as on a long term mission at securing ‘the long-term well-being of the Church of England’, with a duty to ‘Nourish those of the faith; Encourage those of other faiths; Challenge those who have no faith’.

In April 2012 the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales wrote to all state funded Roman Catholic secondary schools, asking that they draw pupil’s attention to an online campaign petition opposing civil marriage equality. The state funded schools sought to politicise pupils in a partisan way and encourage them to oppose legalisation of the elected Government.

The Catholic Church of England and Wales is currently boycotting the Government’s flagship free schools programme because faith free schools are not permitted to select more than half of their pupils by faith when oversubscribed. There is no educational rationale for this position, given that most state funded faith schools in the More Economically Developed World – including many Catholic schools – are not able to select pupils on faith grounds, and when most of the Church’s private schools do not select pupils by faith and many of its state funded schools operate successfully with a large proportion of non-Catholic pupils. The 2015 Catholic school census found that (only) 68.8% of pupils at its state funded schools and 37.1% at its private schools, were counted as Roman Catholic.

One Response to Exemption from lobbying restrictions highlight faith school privileges

  1. a m morris on May 25, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    I have for sometime wondered why in a secular country, tax payers are funding Faith schools which in some cases divide our communities and others have been referred to as educational apartheid.

    What reason can there be for using ALL tax papers money to fund Schools which teach separation and superiority in that my faith is better than your faith and we are chosen others are not as special. This policy must be revoked.

    All charitable status of faith schools should be phased out over the next 4 years.

    Integrating children is crucial to the cohesiveness of our society and the view that ALL children are valuable.

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