Should faith schools be banned?

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I'm a Muslim who went to a Catholic school, honestly it really helped me become open minded. So no, they shouldn't be banned.

Reply 21

TheTechN1304

yes. look at all that mess in birmingham with those muslim schools promoting terrorism...

Reply 22

al3999

Original post by Mankytoes

Absolutely. We should all have the same base of schooling, and it shouldn't promote one religion or another. Primary school children are certainly too young to make decisions about religion, it's just indoctrination at that age. We shouldn't be drilling in how we are all different at such a young age. If parents want to pressure their kids into following their religion, they still have church/mosque/synagogue/whatever, all the time at home. The state must be neutral- secular.

You clearly have never been to a faith school. I can't say for all of them, but I went to a Catholic school and we were certainly not forced into believing anything. Most r.e lessons were about Catholic beliefs, but we would have debates, and the teachers would welcome a wide range of opinions (atheist, Muslim, Anglican, etc, as well as Catholic. In primary school only half of the kids were actually Catholic, and at that age you don't think about it like you do when you're older. Many people don't really start properly believing until they get to early teens at least. Apart from r.e lessons, most religious schools seem exactly the same as others, and I'm my schools many of the teachers aren't religious, so most lessons are normal anyway.
Religious schools are important for installing morals into children and educating them about religion. They are then more equipped to make their own decision when they are older to whether they want to believe or not. If you are not educated about religion, you are purely ignorant to it, and do not understand it properly. This makes you ill-informed when making a decision of whether to belive or not

Reply 23

al3999

Original post by TheTechN1304

yes. look at all that mess in birmingham with those muslim schools promoting terrorism...

They are not faith schools, just normal ones

Reply 24

al3999

Original post by FatmanO

I'm a Muslim who went to a Catholic school, honestly it really helped me become open minded. So no, they shouldn't be banned.

I agree

I went to a Catholic school too, and many of my non catholic friends are glad they went because it has made them more open minded and respectful to other people's beliefs.
It has also made them realise that religion is not what the media and others ignorantly portray it to be today. (Eg: extremist, homophobic, etc)

Reply 25

the bear

Faith schools do a marvellous job. Yours truly was educated at one.

Reply 26

al3999

Original post by ihavemooedtoday

They definitely shouldn't be outlawed, since it's a form of expression of religious freedom.

However, if they fail to cover all the material covered in mandatory education, they shouldn't be allowed to count as mandatory education.

That creates some problems of course - for example, how are they going to teach evolution? But that's their problem, and I am fine with it as long as students come out of their schools have as good an understanding of evolution as students from other schools.

I agree, people today seems of forget that they are going against the main principle of our society today (freedom) by trying to ban religion, etc. People have the right to believe what they want to believe in. As I said before, most religious schools are not extremist, and do teach a balanced curriculum. People who say they don't have obviously never been to a religious school before. Stop judging religion people if you have no experience of it!

Reply 27

RealEquality

This isn't about "banning" religion - but I do support banning faith schools. Religion should be kept far outside of education - if your parents want to subject you to nonsense they can do it in their own time and at their own expense. I look forward to the day when religion is accorded the same respect as other pass times like stamp collecting or train spotting.

I've been to two extremely Catholic schools - to the point of setting up confessionals in the hall in one, and having nutter nuns in the other. Songs, prayers, the huge fuss over Easter and the nativity, regular trips to church - archaic indoctrination and time that should have been spent on other things.

Reply 28

TheTechN1304

Original post by al3999

They are not faith schools, just normal ones

Really? Seems to me like they were Muslim schools http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2652887/Five-Trojan-Horse-schools-placed-special-measures-combat-Islamic-fanatics-Ofsted-chief-warns-children-risk-radicalisation-extremism.html

Reply 29

Carterj09

#Forced to go to mass
#Beliefs crammed down my throat from the age of 5

definatly primary schools, maybe secondary schools

Reply 30

AdamCee

Original post by King Kebab

No

However religious schools should not be funded by the state

Never thought of this before

But perhaps one of the best suggestions I've heard in ages :O

Reply 31

Lady Comstock

If you allow faith schools, you should also allow communist schools, Tory schools, witchcraft (Wicca) schools, etc. Ideology is ideology, whether belief in a supreme being or how a state should be governed.

Reply 32

Mankytoes

Original post by al3999

You're wrong there. I did go to a faith primary school, C of E. And no, it didn't harm me or anything, it was a good school, but on principle it's really wrong that they told us stuff about God like it was factual, knowing that as small children we would take them at their word. If I have kids I want to send them to a school to be educated about facts.

What is more objectionable is my secondary school, which was supposed to be secular, but absolutely wasn't, we had the happy clappy preachers in all the time with their cringeworthy attempts to compare Jesus to Big Brother and things like that. No non-Christian ever spoke to us.

There's a distinction between RE, which is educating children about religion, and assemblies, which are religious indoctrination. Secular schooling gets rid of the latter, not the former (in fact RE is compulsory up to 16 in all schools. That does seem excessive, but on the other hand I got an A* in it so I'm not complaining).

Reply 33

DCFCfan4eva

I think there are several points to make here

1. From what i've seen, faith schools are very open minded, respect all beliefs and encourage their students to do it

2. Faith schools are often very academically successful

3. I think to say that we shouldn't have faith schools with the state of state education is totally and utterly hypocritical. In primary school I was taught the Big bang theory, God didn't make the world etc (although they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive but that's a debate for another time) and secondary it got worse, all but one of the RS teachers were atheists and none of were afraid to say it, we actually very rarely talked about God in 5 years of RS lessons at secondry school.

Just because it's a faith school doesn't mean children are being indoctrinated. I fact I think state schools indoctrinate children far more than faith schools.
I would say faith schools are wayyy more open to other beliefs than state schools who are all like ' God doesn't exist, if someone says otherwise we must expel them'
Tell me, who's really been indoctrinated?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 34

DCFCfan4eva

Original post by fybyth

Yes because Christian values are so abhorrent and faith schools are so dogmatic

Lets return to reality. How many children do you see coming out of faith schools as diehard Christians? none. do faith schools teach the kids about other religions? yes. so what is the problem with faith schools? nothing.

What Christian values are abhorrent?

Reply 35

Jammy Duel

I think not, but they shouldn't be given any sort of preferential treatment by the state. I went to a Church School for secondary (although mainly because it was one of the best in the area rather than for the faith element). The only way it seemed to be any different to a non-faith school was that RE was a compulsory GCSE and more religious focus in assemblies, and obviously a much stronger religious element at Christmas and Easter.

I'm definitely fine with faith secondaries given that by the end one should be able to form their own opinion or at least critically analyse what they're told. If anything, the structure of our RE GCSE lessons (or at least with the teacher I had) probably damaged religious opinion, although that could just be me wanting to believe it.

I'm not so sure on primary though, I don't have any personal experience. If done correctly (ie, similar to my secondary experiences) I would say it's fine; however, given how much more susceptible children are at that age I see an opportunity to really get them indoctrinated, especially if they have severe influences at home.

I also think that, at all levels, it can be somewhat damaging in that focus is put on a single religion. Really, all the main religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism) should be taught, at least basically. Given how multicultural Britain is now it can hardly hurt, and should (if the syllabus is set up correctly) reduce Islamaphobia. It would also have the, what I would see as a benefit, that it would show just how similar they actually are a d just how preposterous the notion of religion is anyway.

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