RE, £2million Blackburn Islamic girls boarding school gets go ahead
Faith schools may permit entry to students designated as belonging to other religions or none, but few parents will wish to have their children educated under the “ethos” of a religion they do not themselves cleave to. Faith schools therefore inherently segregate the population, no matter what their intentions.
More damaging than this social divisiveness is the impact on the individual children of being schooled and isolated in an environment where a particular arbitrary set of outlandish and unevidenced beliefs is promoted and never questioned.
Everyone has the right to freedom of religion, but this is quietly overridden first by parents, who absurdly designate uncomprehending new-borns as ‘Catholic’, ‘Muslim’ etc, and then by the state’s endorsement of faith-based schooling. Children should by all means be taught about religions, but they should not be included in one, if at all, until by their own informed choice at a mature age.
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