Member News
8th February 2011
Ahead of the second reading of the Education Bill in the House of Commons, the British Humanist Association voices concern that it will lead to 'increased and entrenched religious discrimination' in the state-maintained school system.
The Education Bill creates a new centralising power, giving the secretary of state carte blanche to decide the employment rights of teachers in new local schools. Having up to a fifth of teaching posts reserved only for people who are of the 'right' religion is, in any case, deeply unsatisfactory. Extending the power for newly created state-maintained schools to discriminate against all teachers if they request it is deeply regressive and puts at real risk the employment opportunities for potentially thousands of qualified teachers throughout the country.
The bill also contains a presumption that all new schools established by local authorities will be academies, which will make it easier for religious organisations, even those with extreme views, wishing to start up new schools to do so. As the bill stands, it threatens to encourage a proliferation of schools that divide communities and discriminate against local people.
The Education Bill reduces control and scrutiny over school admissions, through removing the duty of local authorities to report on the admissions criteria of schools in an area and to establish an admissions forum. It also curtails the powers of the schools adjudicator which can no longer make a modification to a school's admissions arrangements, even in response to a complaint.
It is deeply concerning that, at the same time as the government is encouraging a proliferation of 'faith' schools, including religious academies and free schools, it is proposing to reduce local control over, and proper scrutiny of, admissions criteria and practices. Without tightening up the rules rather than relaxing them, the Education Bill will exacerbate the problem of discrimination in admissions by some 'faith' schools, which segregate children and communities not only on grounds of religion (which we believe is unacceptable in any case) but along socio-economic and even ethnic lines.
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