Accord wants faith schools to abide by the same admissions criteria as other state schools, with no selection by belief. Teachers should be employed for their skills, not for their faith. It opposes Labour's new rules for faith schools, which came into law yesterday, allowing them to keep all jobs for the faithful. Teaching assistants, dinner ladies and caretakers may need to get on their knees to keep their jobs from now on.
Official policy says it's up to local communities to decide the kind of schools they want. In practice, the academy programme encourages widespread faith takeovers, though in future they must offer half their places to outsiders. Years of Labour handwringing over community cohesion hardly squares with dividing children by religion. Ask why and here's the doublethink answer: religious academies now have a "duty to promote community cohesion".
Look no further than evidence from Northern Ireland to see how much worse divisions grow when 95% of children meet no one from outside their sectarian schools. There, a majority tell pollsters they would prefer mixed schools, but politicians ignore it. A Guardian/ICM poll showed 64% across Britain oppose religious schools - which is also ignored. Odd that Christian and Muslim schools are on the increase just as we are warned that faith wars are now so much more threatening than either the cold war or IRA bombs that habeas corpus must be suspended for 42 days.
http://newageislam.com/faith-schools-may-be-blair-s-most-damaging-legacy/islamic-ideology/d/703
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4:47 AM
Moderate Islamist here
