State Funded Faith Schools - Essay Example

Funded Faith Schools: A Threat to Community Cohesion? A Discussion Paper Introduction From the time when the Church of England proclaimed in 2001 its plan to enlarge the number of church schools and since the government announced its approval of such development, the concern over the presence of faith-based schools has been the most divisively debated issues at the boundary of education and religion in England (Cairns, Gardner & Lawton 2004). The concept ‘faith schools’ within the perspective of the debate is commonly, though not constantly, mentioned not to denote those that exist within the autonomous sector, but, to use the official phrasing, ‘schools with a religious character’ (Cairns et al. 2004: 38) that are sustained by government funding. Hence, the issue raised over and over again is whether it is justifiable for the government to fund faith schools. The objective of this essay is to review and discuss the alleged negative implication of faith schools on community and social cohesion. The discussion will involve a broad array of stakeholders, such as students, local authorities, education practitioners, teachers, religious leaders, and parents, through an array of various ways whereby we could gain something from their awareness and experiences about the challenges and advantages to community cohesion that a faith school system provides. This essay will provide a brief discussion on the major views and recommendations of various stakeholders abovementioned. It also connects the current status of faith-based schools in England to substantiate further discussion on this important issue. The recommendations put forth in this essay have comprehensive repercussions for the nation’s whole education system. In our joint efforts to build a productive multicultural society, major change may at times be essential. Too frequently the dispute about England’s faith schools has been founded on bare rhetoric; in this essay the author provide a more well thought-out and evidence-based framework. Recently, there have been extensively documented exchanges of opinions concerning the issues of faith-based schools, specifically those in the government sector. Often controversial, the debate has mirrored the views of a wide array of groups and individuals, outside and within education (Johnson 2006). Myriad of those issues revolve around the contribution of all schools in enhancing social cohesion in the face of growing government sponsorship of and interest in faith schools (Johnson 2006). Faith-based schools are viewed by government policy as a medium for providing enhanced parental choice, higher educational achievements, and strengthened morality systems for students (MacMullen 2007). Whilst the substantiation on whether contemporary faith schools really fulfil these goals is varied, it is very doubtful that their spreading out will do so, and some teachers think that the consequent unevenness of education provision is unreasonably costly to defend this flawed policy (Cairns 2009). More or less a third of the total number of government-funded schools is faith schools, and this percentage is rising, with several Christian sects and minority religions managing new schools, or governing the growing number of schools in the government sector, or of colleges (Cairns 2009). Faith-based schools are private, elite, counterintuitive and disruptive to social cohesion. Numerous have power over their own admissions, in spite assertions of inclusiveness, building school populations that are unrepresentative of their community populations in socio-economic or religious terms (McKinney 2008). In addition, many show favouritism in their recruitment and staffing on religious bases. Aspirants can be declined and teachers disqualified for promotion due to their affiliation to a ‘different religion’, or to no religion, or due to their gender (McKinney 2008). Teachers can also be terminated if their behaviour is judged irreconcilable with the principles of the school’s faith (Cairns 2009). These issues of faith schools will be discussed comprehensively in the subsequent sections. State-Funded Faith Schools: An Act toward Division or Diversity? Faith schools are perceived by religious groups as vital for preserving identity, culture, language, religion, and for sustaining connection of faith between school and home; schools are viewed as having a good moral philosophy and as being just by virtue of their spiritual and dutiful culture and background (Wetherell, Lafleche & Berkeley 2007). Hence, parents are more likely to believe that their children are more likely to become decent and honourable Jews, Christians, or Muslims, expressing their own sincerely cherished beliefs, taking part in community activities and living conscientious and moral lives (Johnson 2006). The contribution of the school in passing on cultural or community identity will be perceived to be especially crucial where a population feels threatened and oppressed by the mainstream culture. It is not surprising that faith schools are well-liked by parents and commonly overpopulated (Cantle 2001). On the other hand, an opposing standpoint surfaced from The Guardian (2005) survey, which reported that two thirds of its sample population believed that the government should not financially support faith schools of any sort. It is problematic to separate this growth in opposition to faith schools, identified in the period following the July bombings in London, from an alleged threat from Islam (Taylor 2005). In a nation depicted statistically as ever more nonreligious but diverse (Parker-Jenkins, Hartas & Irving 2004), the presence of faith schools within the government sector is more and more out of the ordinary. It is a fact that some denominational schools provide outstanding education and are highly assimilated into their community (Judge 2002). Nevertheless, division of education opportunities for students is a weak foundation for a society which is beginning to recognise the perils of discrimination and segregation, the value of collective awareness and beliefs and community cohesion (Wetherell et al. 2007). Our nation needs schools that welcome and appreciate individual and group diversity within the society, not an institutional variety segregating staff and students on religious bases. Adversaries of faith schools put emphasis on the disruptiveness that they fear will be generated by the reinforcement of the faith school scheme (Dinham, Furbey & Lowndes 2009). Education select committee’s Chairman of the Commons, Barry Sheerman, cautioned that the expansion of faith-based schools created a threat to the solidarity of culturally diverse communities (politics.co.uk 2006). This argument was supported by Baroness Massey: “I am alarmed by the notion of an expansion of state-funded schools controlled by religious interests. I would like to see schools open to all; that are inclusive and welcoming of children of all beliefs and backgrounds” (politics.co.uk 2006: para 6). It is relevant to mention these opinions because divisiveness is the most cited dispute against faith schools. However, it is important to emphasise that community protection, such as distinctiveness, is one of the most cited counterarguments for them (Cairns et al. 2004). Minority groups do not want to be deprived of their unique identities. They want to uphold their distinctiveness, and they want the young members of their communities to embrace this identity, not imbibe the values of the mainstream culture, many of which are perceived as unhelpful and strange (Dinham et al. 2009). Although majority of religious groups, faith communities, and churches advocate faith schools whilst the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association and others challenge them there are religious communities that are concerned about the expansion of faith schools. Rabbi Doctor Jonathan Romain, and several other religious leaders, had this to proclaim in a correspondence to The Times: “Separating children means dividing them... Schools should build bridges, not erect barriers... Precisely because I take my faith seriously, I sent my children to a school where they could sit next to a Muslim, play football with Anglicans, and walk home with an atheist” (Romain 2006: para 2). Chaplain at Cambridge Regional College, Reverend Chris Wilson, in advocating the demand for a prohibition on the funding of faith schools argued in support of a secular system: “We need to be concerned that some faith communities have agendas that are at odds with reason and progress and the interests of science. My aspiration would be to have a secular system in which all faiths are honoured and respected” (Garner 2006: para 2). Substantiation from a current paper entitled Social Capital, Diversity and Education Policy (2006) putting emphasis on the shift between primary and secondary schools showed the helpful outcomes of multicultural schooling. Socialisation at primary school level transcended religious and ethnic differences wherever children had the chance to interact with others from diverse backgrounds (Bruegel 2006). The encouraging implications of secular primary education extended into the formative years of secondary education (Bruegel 2006).The paper also emphasised that secondary school students were mostly in opposition to faith schools. Other scholars and academics, in order to prove that government funding of faith schools is a flawed approach, become concerned with empirical findings that reveal higher extent of segregation in communities with the largest numbers of faith school, specifically those with highly selective admissions or programme (Cairns 2009). This interest is shared by several others, both within and outside, faith communities and religious organisations. Several religious representatives have also criticised the segregation of children by religious affiliation, emphasising the threats of ignorance, of those who are seen to be distinct, in terms of misapprehensions or misunderstandings, similar lives and possibility of conflict (McKinney 2008). As declared by the Cantle report (2001), “contact with other cultures should be a clear requirement for, and development of, the concept of citizenship education from September 2002, and possibly a condition of funding” (p. 18-20). This duty should be placed on every school to ascertain that students have interaction with other cultures. This is especially crucial in faith schools where the threats of segregation may be greater. Nevertheless, the fact that government funding of faith schools is a flawed policy does not imply that schools should adopt a faith-blind approach. A faith-blind policy would not recognise the individuality of students or the distinctiveness of community (Wetherell et al. 2007). It is essentially crucial that our dominant culture, at this point our schools, is open to various faiths, and prevents the barricading of religious communities into fortified, intolerant and protective enclaves. Faith schools should enforce measures, though their recruitment and staffing practices, admissions, and set of courses (Wetherell et al. 2007), to ascertain that they mitigate the threat of segregation and to encourage the aim of community cohesion. Faith schools manoeuvre an array of admission policies, generally established by the levels of subscription and mission of the school. There are a large number of faith schools in locales of high social dispossession and marginalisation which do not have discriminating admission guidelines (Parker-Jenkins et al. 2004); their objective is to serve their community through schooling irrespective of the religious affiliation of that community. Still, other faith schools view their task as the expression and transmission of culture and religious values from one generation to another, and adopt restrictive admission policies with most spots given out to those from their own religious community (Cairns et al. 2004). Currently, a number of religious organisations have expressed their resolve to uphold independence over admissions. These religious organisations, in 2006, opposed government proposals to compel faith schools to allocate up to one-fourth of the entire school places for students with different or no religion, where there is demand locally (Dinham et al. 2009). These issues of access not merely concern equality of admission, but also the seeming academic achievements of faith-based schools. Studies have reported that faith schools’ higher performance levels arise in those with discriminatory admission policies and that these higher levels of performance are attributable to independent management and admission policies and not attributable to faith affiliation (Johnson 2006). This is important when we regard that one of the major motivations of government funding of faith schools is the observation of their higher academic achievements. In comparison to national averages, students in independent and faith schools are much less liable to be given access to complimentary school meals and are more prone to have English as their mother tongue (Wetherell et al. 2007). Nonetheless, reforming the legal position and current independence of government-funded faith schools would be challenging and complicated, taking into account the history, political context, existing awareness and levels of authority exercised by some of the major faith groups (MacMullen 2007). Per se, some scholars and academics’ standpoint stemmed from what is presently achievable and practical. A portion of it centres on the, presently Ofsted-scrutinised, obligation for all schools to demonstrate indications of encouraging community solidarity (MacMullen 2007). Several scholars justify the development of a model of civic involvement where in non-faith and faith schools can work in partnership for the common good and strengthen the community culture that goes beyond distinct cultural and religious identities (Bruegel 2006). Arguments for and against government funding of faith schools should be able to connect standards related to the endorsement of social cohesion to the level of independence awarded to schools, involving faith schools, such as autonomies over the creation of admission policies and the set of courses taught within the school. Educational institutions would meet these standards through verification of an array of programmes (McKinney 2008); from particular ventures to encourage community discussion and better understanding, to project across the qualified curriculum encouraging principles of community involvement and open-mindedness (McKinney 2008). Hence, discriminatory admissions could not be lawfully established by a school that does not provide confirmation of endorsing community solidarity throughout its procedures. Every school should be sustained in this obligation by the appropriate organisations, involving the Commission on Integration and Cohesion (Cairns 2009). Nevertheless, some academics acknowledge the difficulties for educational institutions in finding the occasion to integrate anything recent within an already congested curriculum, specifically one tapered through too much testing (Dinham et al. 2009). Moreover, the existing mechanism of ranking academic achievements in league table is adversative to the objective of inter-school partnership (Johnson 2006). Hence, concerns over the fallibility of government funding of faith schools call for a critical evaluation of existing school accountability process, specifically high-stakes countrywide testing and academic performance league tables, in order that school partnership and community cohesion is more than merely an ambition. Faith Schools: Threatening Social Cohesion and Equalities There are myriads of equalities questions on both sides of the debate over state-funded faith schools (Parker-Jenkins et al. 2004). It is apparent, from an equality perspective, that advocates of Church of England, Jewish and Roman Catholic schools, such as the general public, politicians, parents, and teachers, cannot demand privileges for them that they are afterwards discomfited being granted to other faith-based schools, such as Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, or other religions (MacMullen 2007). There is a problem for those preoccupied with education when attempting to weigh the need for all religious beliefs to be viewed and dealt with equally against the need for stability or equity in school processes (MacMullen 2007). This will definitely call for some pioneering reactions, with little place for aversion to change or ‘position’ politics (Cairns et al. 2004). The privileges and rights of groups are commonly discussed in a similar vein as the privileges and rights of individuals; however, the sum of individual rights is complicated as group rights can run counter to individual rights (MacMullen 2007). Nevertheless, we are not exclusively characterised by membership of one group; there are several other attributes of identity, such as sexuality, race, class, location, profession, interests, and others. There are warnings against the homogenisation of groups through a religious distinctiveness that fails to acknowledge the diversity within. Several school leaders, support staff, and teacher’s union are concerned with equal employment opportunities in faith schools (Dinham et al. 2009). Existing processes are discriminatory, specifically within voluntary-supported schools, to safeguard the religious identity of these schools (Romain 2006). Definitely, delayed modifications to the Education and Inspections Act 2006 permit voluntary-supported faith schools to specify the religious values of all personnel, as well as support staff (Cairns 2009). Moreover, this decree enables voluntary-directed faith schools, which are wholly subsidised by the local authorities, to do the same for management candidates (Bruegel 2006). The privilege of faith schools to choose applicants based on their religious affiliation is biased or inequitable and demands for an immediate end to any expansion of this right to new classifications of employees. There is certainly a specific recruitment or staffing dilemma in faith schools. For principal positions, not only should the group of applicants be of similar religious affiliation as the faith school but they should also fall within specific bounds of personal demeanour (Cairns 2009); for instance, Catholics can be excluded if they have been divorced, decided to live with their partner outside of matrimony, or are bluntly homosexual. This issue of employment in faith schools will only exacerbate should the faith-based school sector spread out and progressively, students and their parents, employees, and schools will lose out. Those fervently in support of faith schools usually refer to the civil rights of devout parents to ascertain that their child has state education within an educational institution that endorses their faith (Wetherell et al. 2007). Nevertheless, in locales where faith schools are overpopulated, there is an actual possibility that secular parents, who also possess constitutional rights, do not have the same admission privileges (MacMullen 2007). Furthermore, should the presence of faith schools sizeably expands, numerous parents may be deprived of the right to make sure that their child enrols in a non-faith, community school (Cantle 2001). Improved parental choice, though a hymn of the existing government, has a cost; a parent’s decision, and their right to use it, has an influence on the decision of others. Finally, in relation to the more prominent schools, preference is exercised more by the educational institution than by the parents (Cairns 2009). Hence, in order to facilitate community cohesion rather than encourage the privileges of one community segment, parental preference for a place in a faith school should be addressed as an equality problem (MacMullen 2007). All schools must uphold a culture of respect, knowledge, questioning, and recognition that others embrace diverse beliefs, discovery and confirmation of values. Schools should also be havens where pupils can strengthen their own individualities and sense of belongingness in the world. Writer of Identity and Violence and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen (2006) eloquently elaborates that focusing, through education, on only a single attribute of identity can stifle or leave out other attributes of identity, specifically those that do not blend in with the principles of the faith organisation (Sen 2006). A remarkable illustration of this is where a young individual, raised within a specific faith, realises their homosexuality. They can afterwards realise it difficult to reunite these two attributes of their identity. Hence, all schools, as well as faith schools, must have recruitment and admission procedures which are comprehensive and recognise the diversity of the educational institution and community people by endorsing exchanges of ideas, tolerance, and understanding. Inclusiveness within Faith Schools Principles of the faith system oblige limits on not just what is taught in faith-based schools but on the way it is taught. The core curriculum, in spite of its current overloaded and overly challenged state, has a crucial function within faith schools through its recommendation of the set of courses (Bruegel 2006). It is therefore acceptable to integrate autonomous faith schools into the established sector. Faith schools, even within the state-supported sector, have some autonomy from countrywide curriculum standards which non-faith schools do not possess (Johnson 2006). All national curriculum courses, especially education and citizenship, religious education (RE), social and health, personal, should be put through the same standards, assessment and monitoring within faith schools as carried out in non-faith schools (Cairns et al. 2004). Under present agreements, faith schools have the liberty to pay no heed to the National Framework for Religious Education and are not compelled to undergo the same Ofsted assessment preparation of the subject (Dinham et al. 2009). All schools should be uniformly mandated to adhere to the statutes of the National Framework or the local Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education and that RE in faith schools must be subject to similar assessment policy, with an unambiguous definition of the standards, as obliged on non-faith established schools (Dinham et al. 2009). One of the strong points of faith schools is their appreciation of the religious individualities of their students. In a number of faith schools, where the populace is religiously heterogeneous, this can extend to all students. There are supports for a practice and curriculum in faith and non-faith schools that appreciates the diversity of the school populace with regard to values and beliefs, background, and persuades those students and their experiences to improve and deepen all features of the curriculum within the educational institution (McKinney 2008). All schools, as well as faith schools, should have accountability towards the larger community, the common good, and to be expected to demonstrate verification of vigorously fulfilling this objective (McKinney 2008). It is also important that local authorities are the ultimate judges of what represents the greater good and its related programmes in the perspective of their communities. Conclusion England has increasingly become a diverse nation with regard to faith and ethnicity. This is a desirable transformation. There are numerous advantages to be reaped from diversity. Nevertheless, that diversity has to be harmonised with cohesion and equality in order to build a productive multicultural society. Our nation has an education system that integrates faith schools. These faith-based schools go one way or another towards revealing religious and cultural diversity in England, but this paper has attempted to determine if government funding of faith schools is a flawed policy based on the ability of faith schools to discourage cohesion and equality. As the culturally diverse arrangement that had been the trend until the advent of the twenty-first century is ever more challenged, and educational institutions are called to respond more actively to progressing inequalities, serve a more important function in their communities, and train young individuals to be productive citizens as well as prolific members of the labour market, the contribution of faith-based schools has come under considerable inspection. The proposals that develop from this essay recommend a path forward that aspires for a sustainable harmony between cohesion, diversity, and equality, a way out that contributes to a shared goal of a flourishing multicultural society. The issue of state-funded faith schools will not be effortlessly mitigated; with several major players establishing and reinforcing their own position. This essay is supporting a best-fit resolution within the existing situation. The right question at the moment is not about how to attain the ultimate compromise but what resources our nation needs to progress in harmony in its absence. References Bruegel, I. (2006) Social Capital, Diversity and Education Policy, Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group , http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/families/publications/SCDiversityEdu28.8.06.pdf. Cairns, J. (2009) Faith Schools and Society: Civilizing the Debate, London: Continuum. Cairns, J., Gardner, R. & Lawton, D. (2004) Faith Schools: Consensus or Conflict? New York: Routledge. Cantle, T. (2001) Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team, Home Office , 18-20. Dinham, A., Furbey, R. & Lowndes, V. (eds) (2009) Faiths in the Public Realm: Controversies, Policies and Practices, UK: Policy Press. Garner, R. (2006, April 12) Faith schools are at odds with reason, says chaplain, The Independent , http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/faith-schools-are-at-odds-with-reason-says-chaplain-473817.html. Glenn, C.L. & Berger, P.L. (2002) The Ambiguous Embrace: Government and Faith-Baed Schools and Social Agencies, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Hanman, N. (2006, May 9) Unequal Opportunities, The Guardian . Humanism: Peers attack faith schools (2006, June 23) politics.co.uk, http://www.politics.co.uk/press-releases/domestic-policy/religion/religion/humanism-peers-attack-faith-schools-$443149.htm. Johnson, H. (Ed.) (2006) Reflecting on Faith Schools: A Contemporary Project and Practice in a Multi-Cultural Society, New York: Routledge. Judge, H. (2002) Faith-based Schools and the State: Catholics in America, France and England, Boston, MA: Symposium Books. MacMullen, I. (2007) Faith in Schools?: Autonomy, Citizenship, and Religious Education in the Liberal State, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. McKinney, S. (Ed.) (2008) Faith Schools in the Twenty-First Century (Policy and Practice in Education), Scotland: Dunedin Academic Press. Parker-Jenkins, M., Hartas, D. & Irving, B.A. (2004) In Good Faith: Schools, Religion and Public Funding, England: Ashgate Publishing. Romain, J. (2006, April 13) Faith schools long division, Times Online , http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article704884.ece. Sen, A. & Gates, H.L. (2006) Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, London: W.W. Norton. Taylor, M. (2005, August 23) Two thirds oppose state aided faith schools, The Guardian . Wetherell, M., Lafleche, M. & Berkeley, R. (eds) (2007) Identity, Ethnic Diversity and Community Cohesion, London: Sage Publications Ltd. Read More