The Accord Coalition has welcomed the Government’s decision not to remove the cap that prevents faith free schools in England from selecting more than half of their pupils on faith grounds, but criticised its intention to instead open local authority maintained faith schools that can still discriminate by faith when selecting all their pupils.
‘However, it is very disappointing that the Government wishes to exploit a loophole in its own policy and help open local authority maintained faith schools that can discriminate by faith when selecting all their pupils. It is clear that integration, not segregation, is the best way forward both for the children concerned and society a large.
‘The move to open fully discriminatory schools, but by a different route, will encourage more ghettoisation in the school system. This is a regressive move that panders to those who wish to isolate pupils of their faith from wider society.
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Notes
A 50% religious discrimination cap was introduced for new faith academy schools by the last Labour Government in 2007. The Coalition Government borrowed the 50% policy when Michael Gove introduced its free schools programme in 2010 (free schools are a type of academy school). In 2015 the Conservative Government told Accord it would be continuing with the faith free school discrimination cap ‘… as an important way of supporting these schools to be inclusive and to meet the needs of a broad mix of families.’
[…] in this case due to a change in policy by the government. Back in 2018 the Department for Education decided not scrap its 50% religious selection cap at faith free schools, but to instead meet 90% of the […]