Make a donation to the BHA’s campaign against ‘faith’ schools on the fundraising page at http://justgiving.com/nofaithschools
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has today launched a major new fundraising campaign to support its ongoing campaign in opposition to state-funded ‘faith’ schools. The campaign is being launched at the same time as the first Free Schools opening. Polly Toynbee has backed the campaign, highlighting its growing urgency in an email to all members and supporters of the BHA.
Since 2007 the BHA has employed the UK’s only dedicated campaigner against ‘faith’ schools. The fundraising campaign aims to raise enough funds to support this post for a fifth year.
In her email, BHA President Ms Toynbee said, ‘Last year, with your help, we managed to raise a year’s funding for our ‘faith’ schools campaigner. We need to do the same this year and I hope you can help us do it. The number of new ‘faith’ schools being established has accelerated over the past year, with the number of religious secondary schools in England rising from 18 to 19 percent across 2010 – nearly a fifth of all secondary schools. The figure for primary schools is much higher.
‘For the past four years the BHA has employed the UK’s only dedicated campaigner against ‘faith’ schools. This campaigner, currently Richy Thompson, works hard to oppose their discriminatory, divisive nature in the media, to government and in support of local campaigns across the country.’
There are over 7,000 such schools in England and Wales, and this number is rising at an alarming rate. Most ‘faith’ schools are able to apply religious criteria discriminate in admissions and in employing all teachers and even some non-teaching staff. The religious groups running them can set their own RE curriculum and they can teach sex and relationships education from their perspective.
Ms Toynbee continued, ‘with many existing schools converting to Academies and the first new Free Schools opening next week, we face a growing new threat. Increased freedom in practice means increased ability to discriminate. ‘Faith’ schools are gaining more control over their curricula, which they now entirely set themselves. Those that cannot currently discriminate in their admissions criteria are often gaining the ability to do so. And teachers at Academies and Free Schools are not required to hold qualified teacher status.’
BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson commented, ‘We would like to thank Polly for supporting our continuing work on education, and recognising, as we do, the importance of our employing a dedicated campaigner against ‘faith’ schools.
‘We have the evidence on our side – ‘faith’ schools are religiously and socio-economically discriminative, and deny pupils a broad, balanced and inclusive education. We also have public support on our side – opinion polls consistently show the majority of the population opposes state-funded ‘faith’ schools. But we fight a well-funded, well-entrenched lobby, and the situation is currently deteriorating. It is therefore vitally important we continue to fund this post.’
Notes
For further comment or information, please contact Andrew Copson, 020 7079 3583.
Make a donation to the BHA’s campaign against ‘faith’ schools on the fundraising page at http://justgiving.com/nofaithschools
Donations will be used to ensure we can employ our dedicated campaigns officer for another year and fund his campaigning activities. Any money donated beyond our target will be spent on BHA education campaigns.
Read more about the BHA’s campaigns work on religion and schools.
The British Humanist Association is the national charity working on behalf of ethically concerned, non-religious people in the UK. It is the largest organisation in the UK campaigning for an end to religious privilege and to discrimination based on religion or belief, and for a secular state.