Accord has responded to an article by Professor Harry Brighouse claiming that children from secular and atheist homes should be sent to faith schools. In it he argues that it is important that children develop into autonomous thinkers and that this is helped by the existence of state-funded religious schools.
Prof Brighouse has good intentions and we wholeheartedly support the aim of increasing the autonomy of children. We agree that children should be able to mix with those of other backgrounds and we agree that children should be exposed to a range of viewpoints, including those that are at odds with those of their parents. But that is the reason Accord believes that schools should be open to students without regard to religion and that is why we strongly support the teaching of balanced Religious Education in all schools, whether or not they have a religious character.
However, by setting up the alternative of an American-style system in which “slavishly conformist loyalty” to schools is enforced through a morning pledge of allegiance, the article fails to engage with the more pressing issue of how faith schools are allowed to operate in Britain.
If the aim is for children to be autonomous then we see no reason why schools should be able to reserve 30% of their places for pupils of the school’s faith, as Prof Brighouse suggests they should. Equally, it is strange to argue that faith schools are the best way to expose children to a range of beliefs when the law means that voluntary aided schools (the majority of faith schools) are able to write their own syllabuses for RE.
So although it is true that the imperative when designing schooling should be “to ensure that children’s interests are well attended to”, we think that Prof Brighouse should look elsewhere for ideas of how that would best be done.
Alex Kennedy is the Coalition Coordinator
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