Author: Anthony Grayling
Publication: The Sunday Times
Date: March 11, 2001
Religious schools brainwash children
and taxpayers should not have to pay for more of them.
EDUCATION secretary David Blunkett's
recent green paper on education envisions a large expansion of state funding
for religion-based schools. The government's love affair with church schools,
together with its commendable wish to seem even-handed towards our society's
different cultural traditions, has already prompted more taxpayers' money
for Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish schools. The new proposal is to increase
all such funding significantly, and to support the growth of religion-based
secondary schools.
This policy is seriously wrong.
Until recently state aid to (mainly primary) schools run by the major Christian
denominations was a relatively marginal matter, so opposition was muted.
But the envisioned extension of funding has at last - and rightly - brought
opposition vigorously into the open.
There are three main reasons why
the policy is wrong. First, by using taxpayers' money to subsidise religion-based
schools, the government forces those of us who are opposed to religions
to contribute to their perpetuation. Religion is a matter of private conscience,
and as such is not a proper object of public support. If minorities in
our society wish to educate their children in schools which premise belief
in gods, astrology, Martians or fairies, they should pay for it themselves.
Second, religion is harmful both
to individuals and society when it becomes publicly institutionalised.
It harms individuals by distorting human nature through repressive moralities
and the inculcation of false beliefs, fears and hopes. It harms society
by causing conflict, war and persecution, as history and the present tragically
testify. It is unacceptable to people who oppose religion for these reasons,
to see young children being indoctrinated into it. It ought to remain strictly
in the private sphere, and children should emphatically not be taught its
various myths and legends as "facts" at school: to do this is a form of
brainwashing or even indeed abuse. Public funds should never be used to
that end.
Third, by giving money to a variety
of religious organisations - Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu - which
are historically and theologically at odds with one another, and which
indeed mutually blaspheme one another's faiths, the government is helping
to entrench divisions in society. Children of all backgrounds ought to
be educated together for greater mutual understanding, not educated apart
in religious ghettos, thereby perpetuating the mistrust which must arise
if people are taught to believe from an early age that their religion is
the true one.
The variety of religious traditions
should of course be taught in schools - but as historical phenomena alongside
astrology, magic, and other aspects of mankind's earlier ignorance. This
would not please the religions, which are avid to indoctrinate young people.
Few who first meet religion in adulthood are able to take it seriously;
priests know that to keep the old faiths alive, they have to get their
hands on children.
Blunkett says that he wishes he
knew the secret of church schools' success, so that he could bottle it
for use in all schools. His remark is worrying, because the secret of their
success is no mystery at all. It is: small classes, enthusiastic parental
support, motivated teachers, and - a product of all three, and a necessary
basis for the educational process - discipline. The majority of state schools
lack at least two of these four necessary conditions for effectiveness,
and often more than two. That is why they struggle. Class sizes and teacher
motivation are a matter of money. Parental support is a matter of social
ethos, and it involves giving full backing to schools in discipline, help
and encouragement of the kind that middle-class parents, especially the
most aspirational among them, lavish on their offspring.
Church schools' share the "secret"
of success with private schools.
Opponents of the government's plans
for increased aid to religion-based schools now have a powerful new weapon:
the Human Rights Act, article 9 of which protects freedom of thought, conscience
and religion, and the right to change one's religion or beliefs. Arguably,
indoctrination of children in religious views is a violation of their right
to freedom to make up their own minds when in a position to do so.
Religion is a matter of private
persuasion. Secularists such as myself deeply regret that some people live
by superstitions and indoctrinate their children into the same beliefs.
I find it scandalous that public money - my taxes included - should go
to support them in doing so. Religious schools, if they are to exist at
all, should be privately funded, and the policy of allowing them to move
from the independent to the maintained sector is wholly wrong.
