WHEN Labour won the 1997 general election, education was at the heart of the party’s agenda and there was a determination to improve educational standards for all. And standards have risen considerably over the past 11 years. There have been significant extra financial resources made available for education and teachers have become much more effective in helping students to learn.
However, the Government is increasingly relying on new structures to raise standards. It has developed the idea of academies and is happy to see more religious schools. Ministers do not seem to realise that two-thirds of Church of England schools do not admit students on religious grounds at all or that the governing bodies of such schools are not the employers of the staff. The C of E chose to adopt this model, but no one regards its schools as being less successful as a result.
When then Education Secretary Alan Johnson suggested more flexibility over admissions to Roman Catholic Schools, he was quickly told to drop the idea by Tony Blair after lobbying by the Catholic Church.
It is claimed that examination results are much better in church schools and so is discipline. This is not based on evidence and the facts are more complicated. Some church schools are “failing” and many community schools out-perform church ones. A happy and successful school does not have to run on religious guidelines.
The policy of funding other faiths to set up their own schools in an increasingly
multi-racial society has not been not thought through. Muslim students should be educated alongside Christian, Sikh and Hindu students, as well as black and white ones.
The riots in Bradford and Oldham a few years ago illustrated the damage done to society when communities grow up in isolation from one another and ignorant of different beliefs and values.
Who would have thought that after 11 years of this Labour Government there would be more children attending religious and grammar schools than there were in 1997? It seems that one third of the academies are religious schools which are unaccountable to their local communities. There is no evidence that any of this will improve educational standards.
No one objects to young people being taught about their own religion, so long as they learn about other faiths, too. Schools need to reflect their communities and cater for the different needs of those communities. The educational curriculum needs to reflect that ours is a multi-cultural, multi-racial, society where people follow different religions and none. At present, the curriculum is falling short. We are in danger of producing an educational system increasingly divided on religious or selective grounds and this will make the raising of standards more difficult, especially in poorer areas.
Whatever the claims of grammar and religious schools, they take fewer children from poorer homes, thus leaving community schools with a far more challenging task in raising standards.
Most parents oppose this approach to education, but none of the main political parties reflect this in their educational policies. Labour needs to return to some core principles if we want to raise educational standards for all and that will not happen
if we allow our schools system to be increasingly divided. More faith schools are not the answer in the 21st century. We need schools where all communities are educated together, not separately.
Since most parents are not religious, we should at least have a sensible debate on the role of faith schools in the future.
Graham Lane is a former chair of the Local Government Association’s education committee
