'Why I have no faith in these schools'

IN the last decade there has been an increase of interest in Britain in the possibility of setting up new faith-based schools, owned and managed by religious institutions and foundations, and with the sanction of government.

For the majority of those from an Asian background, this could mean the possibility of new schools managed by Muslim, Hindu and Sikh foundations, while for others in our community, it might mean a big expansion in Christian schools, either managed by the established churches or by born-again evangelical bodies.

The Government is piloting an Education Bill through the House of Commons which will, in certain circumstances, give the green light for such schools to be set up. I want to say why I feel that, without proper safeguards, this could be a dangerous precedent.

I will begin on a personal note. I come from a religious background, Hindu and Sikh, although I am myself a humanist. I have to say that I went through a state education, and enjoyed that state education, not least because it equipped me to value debate, argument and inquiry without religious indoctrination, and because it was not strait-jacketed into a narrow sectarian way of thinking.

That is not to say that I do not appreciate or value the contribution our religions have made to our society and our people. I still attend the Mandir and Gurdwara, and I respect their teachings in the same way that I respect the insights of teachings from other creeds and denominations. As a Teesside MP, representing an area where many faiths flourish, I have attended Christian churches and mosques, and have always been impressed by the seriousness and dedication of many priest and imams and their congregations.

I also pay tribute to the historic role that the non-conformist churches - primarily the Methodist Church - played in this region in helping to educate and inspire generations of working class families to recognise their worth to society. The role of the Methodist Church in setting up and sustaining institutions such as the co-operative movement and the first trade unions was a proud one and must be remembered.

But we have to come to terms with the harsher realities of today. In the modern world, the re-creation of faith schools through direct sponsorship of schools is, I believe, a very fraught issue.

There is an historical parallel. In this country, back in the 1870s, the first stirrings of opposition to faith schools - then the dominant form of teaching in the land - came from those who could clearly see the dangers that setting such schools into an institutional framework could mean. Sages and philosophers, such as the great Victorian radical, Jeremy Bentham, argued for the freeing of education from the narrow confines of the church and the chapel.

They saw that the great advances in scientific and cultural discovery that were occurring at that time had to be discussed and studied in our schoolrooms, and they were concerned that the narrow dogmatism that characterised many religious institutions would act to inhibit these voyages of intellectual discovery.

I believe that this argument was correct at that time, and is even more valid in today's world. Mankind is constantly discovering new truths about our world, and the universe that this world is part of. Many of these discoveries are deeply challenging to those whose sole ethos is blind obedience to the texts laid down by prophets and seers of the past, and it is difficult to see how the children of today, if they are to be taught by such people, will be able later on in life to come to terms with what is scientific reality.

The other grave concern I have is of increased exclusivity. I believe that it is simply wrong to set up new schools that could act deliberately to exclude children whose parents may be of another faith or another community. There is an exclusivity here that can be paralleled by a similar exclusivity in terms of politics or of neighbourhood. It could lead to an intensification of ghettoisation of areas of entire towns or cities in this country to an extent that is unthinkable at present.

It could lead to an agenda that promotes and promulgates ideas and beliefs that implicitly - or even explicitly - challenges the concept of multi-culturalism and diversity of belief and schools which would seek to stifle the pursuit of knowledge about other faiths and races.

We only have to see the spectacle of Northern Ireland to realise the reality of this. The sight of children having to be escorted by police and soldiers so they can go to and from school is an ugly one, and one I do not want to see in the streets of England.

THERE is a philosophical argument here too. Put simply, can the teaching of a special religious belief in an institutional setting be seen to be an attempt to indoctrinate a child, and does it also not take away the autonomy of a child who attends such a school? In a nutshell, would the setting up of new faith schools mean indoctrination? Indoctrination is a strong word, but I will use it because I believe that the teaching of a child about a specific religion without reference or parallel to other faiths is simply that.

Put succinctly, the purpose of such tuition is to see that a pupil comes to accept a religious belief as 'true', not as a concept that can be tested against other concepts, but purely and simply true. It is no accident perhaps that many religious leaders and religious educationalists speak not of religious education, but religious instruction.

The loss of autonomy, also, is a strong accusation. But I believe that forcing a child to accept tuition based on one set of religious tenets and possibly using the powers of reprimand if acceptance of such a religion is not given, is wrong. It is a loss of autonomy at the best, and simple coercion at the worst. It completely takes away a child's right to self determination of the relevance and rightness of a religious creed, or the child's ability to reject that creed altogether.

However, if after saying all this, a new wave of faith schools is to be created in this country, then I think there have to be safeguards built in from day one. Firstly, there has to be a test to see that there is genuine community support for the proposal. That support will have to be tested by both the local education authority of the area and the Department of Education.

Secondly, such schools must have a number of duties placed on them, duties enforceable through law, to respect other religions and creeds. They should not be allowed to have admissions policies that could be seen as discriminatory, and must be placed under a duty to teach and inform their children of the teachings of other faiths.

They should also be under a duty to follow the National Curriculum in terms of the teaching of science subjects, and they should also have to duty to work in partnership with the local education authority for the area in which they are located. They should be subject to the same Ofsted inspection procedures as all other schools, and they must be prepared to have their credentials tested by bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality.

These are, I know, tough tests. But I believe that they are needed if we are not to fall into the trap identified some 130 years ago by the pioneers of state education in this country.

We have, over the last 40-50 years, built up a multi-cultural, multi-faith society. We have exorcised the ghosts of Enoch Powell, and, by and large, have learnt the gentle art of toleration. We do not want to throw this away by setting, in tablets of stone, an education system that could deny toleration.

lAshok Kumar is Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland