Multiculturism Or More Faith Schools ?

[modeller]

Should we have multiculture schools or hundreds of faith schools which promotes division ? The latter seems to be government policy . That's how it is in my area , children are being bussed in from 10+ miles away to keep schools single faith .

[askyourgran]

I find the whole business most depressing. Children are children and should be taught their lessons as British education is set out now, religion and caste should not come into it. It is not right that special attention be given for children to travel miles to get to keep a single faith school going, the intention of that cannot be ignored. Segregation should not be allowed if we are supposed to be looking toward a multicultural society.

[naomi24]

Faith schools only serve to create further division. In attempting to please everyone the law-makers will very soon end up climbing up their own bottoms.

[modeller]

You would think with our experience in NI that would be enough warning about the dangers of segregation. The latest business in Birmingham shows the danger when extremists are allowed to get away with it and that wasn't even in faith schools. It seems to me our governments Red Yellow or Blue are all a bunch of public school pupils who haven't a clue about real life.

[askyourgran]

Perhaps I am being slightly naive in thinking they wanted to avoid racism etc, but I think it is mainly ignorance of the whole situation, no common sense at all.

[tamborine]

Modeller its votes that count. Some faiths can control/massuage/fiddle votes for parties that support their interests.

[naomi24]

It's highly misleading to imply that the promotion of faith schools is 'government policy' - but religion has taken advantage of the option to found free schools.

[Peter Pedant]

Modeller you are of an age to recollect that the 1944 Butler Act ( on Education ) allowed denominational education.

and so it was possible - perhaps misused in NI - to have a RC school and or a Protestant school.

There are even denominational universities ( Oxbridge )

What has happened in Birmingham clearly isnt due to the 1944 Act.

I would call it Entryism - recyclilng a term from twenty years ago.
What parents and some governors have done is conspire to disadvantage the education of their own children.

no wonder the rest of us look on with disbelief.

[sandyRoe]

If a school was formed with the aim of promoting a fundamentalist Christian view of the world based on the OT (and denying evolution, for example) would Whitehall order the inspectors in to declare it a failure?

[redman41]

In my opinion, Religion should not play a part in any School.
Children go to School to be Educated and not to be Brainwashed.
Those who believe in a God can do so at Home or in their place of Worship

[Peter Pedant]

Sandy it is an issue in the Land of the Free. Whether Creationism is to be covered in Biology classes, along with injunctions like ' and we dont know if it is true or nart...'

The rest of us are looking on to see if America will fill its universities with students with unshakeable unscientific views ( cos it gives a rest of us a chance to compete )

The thing that makes me gawk is that the people who wish to have muslim fundamentalism in schools have a glorious scientific tradition of thought and experiment whilst in Christendom, we were er burning thinkers if they didnt think in a good Christian way.

I look at a bearded wonder nowadays and think how is it possible your lot invented algebra a thousand years ago whilst we were swinging in the trees ?

[naomi24]

//Whether Creationism is to be covered in Biology classes, along with injunctions like ' and we dont know if it is true or nart...'//

I think it’s more a case of evolution being mentioned in the classroom as something that is being promoted by potty scientists who are leading the non-Muslim world astray, the reality being that Allah created the universe; he made shooting stars as weapons against demons, and he made the mountains to peg down the earth. Great science – and I expect Christian Creationists would get around it in much the same way – minus the instruction about the mountains and the stars of course. ;o)