The British state helps to fund schools that involve prayer and religious teaching as part of the syllabus as if factual like numeracy or literacy. These state-funded schools currently have a cap on the proportion of students they can enrol from any specific religion of 50%. Independent schools that are not funded by the state, however, do not have this restriction. In 2012, the OECD found the UK was one of only four countries to allow schools to accept and reject pupils based on religion.
As of 2012, there are 6,729 state schools that in character, are Christian or a branch of Christian, such as Methodists or Quakers. Church of England and Roman Catholic schools alone make up 6,608 of state schools. The above groupings represent 33.5% and 32.8% of state schools respectively. There are also 11 schools of Muslim character and 32 Jewish. In total, there are 6,783 state faith schools, making up 33.8% of all state schools in the UK. Furthermore, there are academies that unlike state schools, do not have to follow the national curriculum as closely and have far more freedom over admissions. Of these, there are 47 that maintain a religious character, or 23.13% of all UK academies. All follow a religion that stems from Christianity.
The Problem
The existence of faith schools causes a number of problems but they all stem from one fundamental right that religious schooling contradicts. In Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights, it states all individuals are entitled to the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. The over-exposure to any religion and the presentation of its teachings as if scientific fact to impressionable children without the knowledge or logic to think for themselves leads to the unwilling and irreversible indoctrination of Britain’s youth. For many children the only break from home life is school. If a parent is intent on sending their child to a religious school, they will almost certainly strive to instil in them the same values and beliefs when at home. This means the child is constantly being force-fed these messages and is never allowed the opportunity to gain an opposing view and think critically. So, when a child does come of an age when their interactions extend to outside school or home, their parents’ religion is already embedded, and that is hard to veer away from.
From their pre-chosen religion comes many problems. Religions, especially strict ones, cause followers to affiliate with one another far more than with those not of the same faith. So entire groups of people can fail to integrate with the rest of society socially, and therefore geographically. It is very common, for example, to find large Muslim communities within urban areas where in a fully equal and integrated society communities would form with a mix of all beliefs, or lack thereof. This geographical isolation can lead to an immobility of labour and so difficulties to gain a job or career than if they were elsewhere. So an entire generation of a single race can be raised in a culture where they have a distinct economic disadvantage, not due to any kind of institutional racism or prejudice, but because of a culture that their parents created and they had no choice in. The effect of faith on a society’s economy can be shown by the correlation between religiosity and income. In 2010, Gallup reported in a worldwide survey: people with a per-capita income of $2000 or less answered ‘yes’ at a rate of 92% when asked if religion was an important part of their lives. Contrast this to those with an income per-capita of $25,001 or more and the ‘yes’ answer falls to 47%. Furthermore, the Win-Gallup International Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism from 2012 reported that people in bottom income groups are 17% more religious than those in top income groups. Both these surveys are clear evidence that being religious, or living in a religious society have, on average, a negative economic effect.
Another issue that arises with some religions themselves is the values they teach. While most religions teach peace and understanding, some also impart views of intolerance toward specific characteristics. All the major Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) prohibit homosexuality. For example, from the Holy Bible, a scripture in Leviticus 20:13 reads, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Similarly, the Quran 7:81 verse says of homosexuality, “will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you?” establishing it as worse than adultery or any other sexual sin. This could, though not officially stated in the Quran, include paedophilia as shown by Muhammad recounting his preferred wife was a girl of nine years. While most modern religious followers decide to not follow these teachings as strictly as their holy books originally dictated, some polls reveal surprising intolerance and questionable values even among current generations. The Gallup Coexist Index 2009 showed, for instance, that of 1001 UK Muslims polled, not one found homosexuality to be morally acceptable, and 52% believe it should be illegal, as well as 23% believing Sharia law should be mandatory across the UK. Sharia law includes laws such as: any form of defiance against Muhammad, Allah or the Quran is punishable by death; a man can engage in, and consummate, a marriage to a nine-year-old girl; girls should be subject to genital mutilation in the form of a cut clitoris; testimonies of four male witnesses are required to prove rape against a woman and the woman cannot testify in court against her rapist. The list of archaic rules goes on and on and a child should have the ability to decide for themselves if they accept these ideals. These radical values still exist in today’s generations as a result of religious parents raising their children in an isolated community where bigotry is encouraged.
A further obstacle comes when parents are so against their child having any interaction with others not of their faith. Due to the current cap on state-funded schools only being allowed to enrol a maximum of 50% of students of any one religion, devout parents instead opt to pay for their child to go to a school that is not bound by the same restrictions. This, as well as causing all the above concerns and building cultural barriers, takes the child away from the national curriculum. Private schools do not have to follow the state-set regime of learning so children can leave education with huge gaps in their knowledge. For example, The Charedi Talmud Torah Tashbar Jewish private school in the UK did not teach English. Granted, it was shut down for this huge failing, but only after 40 years of Ofsted reports. The school claimed in the reports to leave out its country’s primary language, “as a matter of religious principle”. The inspectors said in response that the school encouraged, “cultural and ethnic insularity because it is so narrow and almost exclusively rooted in the study of the Torah”. I believe the National Curriculum will give all children the best chance of successfully functioning in society and in their careers.
Finally, for whatever reason, abuse is far more common in faith schools, especially private. Consider this excerpt from The Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) report of 2009. ‘7.129 In relation to one School, four witnesses gave detailed accounts of sexual abuse, including rape in all instances, by two or more Brothers and on one occasion along with an older resident. A witness from the second School, from which there were several reports, described being raped by three Brothers: ‘I was brought to the infirmary. They held me over the bed, they were animals. They penetrated me, I was bleeding’. Another witness reported he was abused twice weekly on particular days by two Brothers in the toilets of the dormitory: “One Brother kept watch while the other abused me then they changed over. Every time it ended with a severe beating. When I told the priest in Confession, he called me a liar. I never spoke about it again.”’ I encourage you to grasp the reality that the above report was written no more than 7 years ago about faith schools in Britain. This was not the first school like this, nor will it be the last. Schools like this are not state-funded, do not follow the curriculum and continue to harbour this kind of abuse to children.
There will be those on the opposing side of the argument who will say religion is a force for good, as it mostly imparts good values, such as the famous line from the Torah and Bible, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” But that argument implies that the same morals cannot be taught without the acceptance of a God, which is fundamentally incorrect. As well as this, it is recognised that there is a definite need for teaching about religions – for greater understanding of cultures and societies to further break down barriers and allow social integration. But the teaching of a single religion as if fact and the indoctrination of impressionable children is unacceptable.
The Solution
The solution, as stated, is a complete abolition of all faith schooling in primary and secondary schools- both private and state-funded. Any institution registered as a state or private school will be prohibited from teaching any religion as fact but will have no other alteration to their curriculum. First, something that must be made clear is that this is not a ban on religion. This is not a policy that objects to the idea of any kind of creed, doctrine or denomination. The freedom to hold, practise and express a religion is accepted and protected under the European Convention of Human Rights.
From the above problems, I do not believe that religion itself is the driving factor in the socio-economic barriers that exist in the UK; but instead the extreme concentration of it. Under faith schools, children of differing religions are separated from one another. If no schools are religious in character, then no family would have a reason to enrol their child somewhere for the teaching of their faith. The abolition of these schools will allow children to socialise and relieve cultural barriers from an early age. This will therefore lead to greater geographical integration and mobility of labour within religions, reducing economic barriers that separate people of different beliefs.
Moreover, children in secular schools will be exposed to opposing viewpoints to their parents’ religion. This will protect the child from early indoctrination until point where they may have the ability to decide for themselves, thus protecting their right to their own religion as well as reducing the prevalence of some of the more negative values taught by particular faiths.
The abolition will also ensure more children follow the National Curriculum, and leave school at the age of 16 with the necessary skills to enjoy, and succeed in, their social and working lives. Finally, there are many theorised reasons for abuse being more common in faith schools but none are clear. But the removal of religion from these schools will dramatically curtail the sort of horrific incident quoted earlier.
The government currently has a policy to lift 50% cap on students of one religion in a state-funded school. This is because some religious parents pay to send their child to a private faith school just to avoid the interaction of other beliefs. The government policy will return these children to the National Curriculum. However, it ignores the other pressing issues around faith schools and if anything, increases them by allowing more schools of a single faith and preventing what little integration exists in state-funded faith schools. The policy of complete abolition will tackle all the problems stated much more effectively.
Conclusion
The UK is still somewhat religious. 30% of UK citizens said they were religious in 2015 so the implementation of this policy may cause some backlash from religious people, but the 30% is falling and the number of religious parents who send their children to faith schools is even lower. Also, this could be seen as an infringement of human rights to prevent the running of, or enrolment of a child at, a faith school. But, to me, the rights of that child to choose their own religion and not be subject to the problems listed above are paramount. So in spite of these drawbacks, this policy is vital – to prevent the continuation of the issues arising from faith schools and for the progression of society as a whole.