Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of royal assent being granted to the Education Act 1944, also known as the Butler Act. The Act brought ‘faith’ schools into the state-maintained sector for the first time, and also made both faith-based Religious Instruction and Collective Worship compulsory in all schools when previously both were optional. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has called for a review of the place of religion in education – something that has not happened in a wholescale fashion since that time.
Prior to the passage of the Act, Catholic, Anglican and Methodist Church schools were already in receipt of significant contributions from the state, but nonetheless remained private schools. However the churches were unable to continue to fund their schools to the same extent, which caused the proportion of children in Anglican schools to drop from 40 percent at the start of the century to 22 percent.
The education system badly needed reform, and so then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to allow President of the Board of Education R. A. Butler to attempt to produce an education act. However, given the war, he was only allowed to do so on the condition that he could gain agreement from all the parties – including the churches. As a result, the settlement – which established the system of community, voluntary controlled and voluntary aided schools that we still have today – was much more favourable to the churches than it might otherwise have been, essentially saving the decaying church sector by providing it with all the funding it needed.
Since then the system has if anything become more favourable to religious groups still, with increasing freedoms being granted in return for diminishing financial contributions. Voluntary aided (VA) schools are able to religiously discriminate to a greater extent than voluntary controlled (VC) schools in their governance, admissions, employment and curriculum. This was permitted in 1944 because while VC schools became entirely state funded, 50 percent of the capital costs at VA schools would be contributed by the churches. But since then that has dropped to just 10%, or 1-2% of the schools’ total budgets – which is typically fundraised off the parents and is waived entirely for Academies, Free Schools, and any big building projects.
Conversely, ‘faith’ schools have gained ever-increasing freedoms. The national curriculum, which was introduced in 1988, does not apply to Academies and Free Schools, enabling those which are religious to teach from a narrower, less shared perspective. Teachers at those schools no longer have to hold qualified teacher status but can be appointed purely on account of their religious qualifications. And as church attendance has dropped to just 4% of the parent-age population, religiously selective school admissions policies have become increasingly open to manipulation and so engender socio-economic selection. At the same time, the proportion and diversity of religious schools has increased, including the arrival of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh schools.
BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson commented, ‘Yesterday marked 70 years since the conclusion of the last wholescale review of the place of religion in education. Society has transformed since then, with church attendance having been in major decline ever since, and yet the proportion of religious schools has been increasing. There has been no wholescale, holistic Government review of the place of religion in education since then, just successive changes without consultation, made in the face of strong public opposition. It is time that that changed, with the current, outdated settlement of compulsory collective worship in all schools, religious instruction in “faith” schools and widespread discrimination in admissions and employment, scrapped.
‘It is vital that all children receive a broad and open education from schools whose primary interest is not in passing on a certain religious point of view but in providing a strong civic education that emphasises the important values of inclusion, tolerance and respect for diversity.’
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For further comment or information contact Richy Thompson at richy@humanists.uk or on 020 7324 3072.
Read Andrew Copson’s recent comment piece on religion and schools for politics.co.uk: http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/06/11/comment-the-cost-of-failing-to-address-the-place-of-religion
Read more about the BHA’s work on ‘faith’ schools: https://humanists.uk/campaigns/schools-and-education/faith-schools/
View the BHA’s table of types of school by religious character: https://humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/schools-with-a-religious-character.pdf
The British Humanist Association is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people who seek to live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity. It promotes a secular state and equal treatment in law and policy of everyone, regardless of religion or belief.