Accord has updated today its collection of personal testimonies and media reports that highlight a wide variety of narrow and discriminatory practices at state funded schools. New examples added to the compilation include:
- independent faith schools found to be providing creationist and patriarchal teaching
- an Orthodox Jewish state funded school being prevented from assigning school places on account of parents adhering to family purity laws related to sexual and other interactions between husbands and wives
- a new section highlighting new discriminatory faith schools, places at faith schools and narrow religious influence over local schools that are unwanted
By providing real life examples, the collection of reports and testimonies seeks to complement the 150 page databank that Accord maintains setting out contemporary evidence and research about the implications of current policy on state funded faith schools and their practices.
Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘To date, most of the examples that we have collated highlight discrimination and disadvantage that pupils, parents and staff face within the school system. However, it is also the case that many families do not want the narrow faith based education that they have been allocated, while local communities think it is inappropriate for local state funded schools to come under the control of faith groups, which the compilation now evidences.
‘Just as it is wrong for opportunities at state funded schools to be denied to people on the grounds of faith, so families and local communities should be free from pressures to religiously conform by those schools. The portfolio makes for disturbing reading and emphasises the pressing need for changes in how schools operate.’
If you discover a news report or would like to tell us about your own first hand experiences that you think could be of interest to Accord in then please let us know.
