Faith in schools

Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State
for education, 2011–2014

The question of faith schools – good or bad? Desirable or not? – is very much in the air (even more so now that we are a multi–faith society). Well, I (we) do not have any children, and I may be insufficiently in touch to make relevant comment. However, I was for many years a 'consumer' – largely unwilling! – of general education, so perhaps my credentials are sufficient after all. 

The question of faith schools was not one that seemed to arise very much in the 1940 and 1950s when I was at school. The choice in Sussex, as far as I know, only existed between C of E and Catholic (although in the 1960s there was the Brighton and Hove Jewish Day School). Broadly, most children went to schools that were – either nominally or actively – C of E. And that was me, a 'nominal' in receipt of a Christianity so watered down that the disciples would scarcely have recognised it . . . Still, I would admit that moral threads of our 'school Christianity' blended seamlessly enough with the broad moral code of the society with in which we lived (and in which there were far more humanists and agnostics that might have been thought). So, would I say that the religious aspect of my schooling was a force for the good in terms of my moral development? Well, perhaps. However, I well remember an occasion when our RE (or RI) class was so boring, and the class so disruptive, that our teacher informed us that we all “heading for hell”. This defect of self–possession was of course scarcely inspiring, and was not I think lost on the least bright of us. These intimations of hellfire and damnation that reached our ears from time to time tended to promote a certain fearfulness and strain which were quite inimical to the nourishing of the kind of courage that we needed. And as for any teaching that might have even begun to reveal to us, for example, the true freedom of the Good Samaritan, we simply did not get it.

However, if I am not particularly in favour of faith schools – and I am not – then I do not think that is only because of my own experiences. Principally, I am against them because of their apparent tendency to be divisive in the wider community. It is bad enough that ethnic minorities are so often 'ghettoised' in terms of housing areas; but when children are not meeting and mixing at school either, is it surprising that mutual suspicion and hatred tend to flourish? And why should children be denied the opportunity of enrichment through friendship with those from radically different cultures to their own? That mixed schools have their own problems I do not doubt, but unless these prove to be insurmountable, that is no argument against them: every solution has its associated problems.

Agreed there is the very difficult problem of how to conduct assemblies in multi–faith schools. But then do assemblies have to be religious? I see no reason why they should be. Moreover, any attempt to give due weight to all the faiths represented in the school is bound to fail. The possible alternatives – of either being excused assembly or sitting through in silence are not good.

Another problem I have with the idea and practice of faith schools is that I do not believe that children can – by any stretch of the imagination – be religious. It is a concept for grownups. The interests of children are so quick in so many directions that they can well be spared what is – or used to be – called 'religious instruction'. I would be inclined to go even further, and say that only exceptionally mature and balanced teenagers are able to think clearly enough to make a faith–based choice. The desire to play safe and embrace a creed that maps out your life for you remains an ever–present threat; and the university years can in this respect – for the most vulnerable students – have fatal results: from the rejection of parents and family resulting from extreme radicalisation.