The place of faith-based schools within the education system has become in recent years a subject of increased debate.  Arguments for increasing their number - as a recognition and celebration of cultural diversity - have been countered by concerns that such schools lead instead to an increase in mono-culturalism and the separation of communities, and may frustrate social cohesion. There are few signs of a resolution of the debate.  It seems timely, therefore, to re-examine the rôle which faith-based schools in general and religious education in particular might be expected to play both within the education system and in promoting better inter-community understanding.

A CHANGE OF EMPHASIS

In 2001, a Government white paper [1] welcomed faith schools into the mainstream of the education system in England and Wales [2] and acknowledged ‘their distinctive ethos and character’. The report recognized that ‘faith schools have a significant history as part of the state education system and play an important rôle in its diversity’; and announced it would support ‘inclusive faith schools’.  As one indication of its attitude, and in recognition that more than 5,000 schools in the country are faith schools [3] , the white paper went on to welcome: ‘the recommendation that Church of England schools should serve the whole community, not confining admission to Anglicans. We want faith schools that come into the maintained sector to add to the inclusiveness and diversity of the school system and to be ready to work with non-denominational schools and those of other faiths.’

During that same year race riots occurred in a number of English towns.  The Government-commissioned Cantle report [4] into causes of the unrest looked at, among other things, the rôle of faith schools in enhancing or inhibiting social cohesion.  While it supported the Government’s view that new faith schools should be inclusive, the report also made the point that the means to achieve this had not yet been established. 

Among several concerns it raised was the admission policies of schools that required parents to produce written evidence of their religious affiliation and practice, effectively excluding children from other faiths.  It noted: ‘whilst it is not possible to discriminate on the grounds of ethnicity under present legislation, it is possible to determine intake by reference to faith or denomination.  This is in the gift of the church and faith leaders, entirely consistent with their desire to promote religious tolerance and understanding.’  The report might have noted also that while legislation [5] permits religious education in the tenets of particular religions or religious denominations, curiously, legislation [6] also requires religious education and collective worship to be broadly Christian in character but without being distinctive of any particular denomination.  Non-Statutory Guidance in RE, launched in April 2004 by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, maintained this latter approach, proposing that pupils should study Christianity at each stage of their schooling, with other major faiths being looked at in less detail.  However, apropos of this, it is to be noted that faith-based schools are exempted from the Religious Education elements of the 1988 Act, but nevertheless receive funding from the public purse.

The Cantle report went on to express the opinion that faith-based schools were often favoured by parents as much for their better than average results, as for the faith-based education, and continued, ‘in terms of community cohesion, however, a significant problem was posed by existing and future mono-cultural schools, which could add significantly to the separation of communities’.  In any event, it concluded, the simple extension of faith schools raised questions about the nature of all such schools.  What was needed was a change of emphasis so that all schools would promote and foster an understanding of other cultures [7].

WIDER RESPONSIBILITIES AND OBLIGATIONS

Also questioning the effect of faith schools, in April 2002 the country’s second biggest teachers' union, the NAS/UWT, called for a ban on new faith schools, claiming the philosophies behind such schools were ‘exclusive and discriminatory’ and deepened social divisions.  At a practical and wider level, for whatever reasons, it is the case that there are many teachers today who are reluctant or unwilling to take religious education classes. 

Secular commentators have also expressed the concern that promoters of faith schools might be motivated principally by an imperative to arrest declining congregations, rather than to promote greater inter-group understanding and social cohesion, citing [8] as a case in point a report [9] which stated: ‘As never before in 50 years, the Church has a great opportunity to pursue and develop its mission to the nation through its schools, as nowhere else.’ 

Misgivings about the effect of de facto segregation in faith schools were most recently expressed by David Bell, HM Chief Inspector of Schools, during a talk [10] about ‘citizenship’ as a national curriculum subject.  Noting an increase in the number of independent faith schools, he said: ‘I believe that it is right that parents should be able to choose how their children are educated and should be able to pay to do so.  That is the mark of a free and open society.  Yet, on the other hand, faith should not be blind.  I worry that many young people are being educated in faith-based schools, with little appreciation of their wider responsibilities and obligations to British society.’  He continued, ‘This growth in faith schools needs to be carefully but sensitively monitored by government to ensure that pupils at all schools receive an understanding of not only their own faith but of other faiths and the wider tenets of British society.  We must not allow our recognition of diversity to become apathy in the face of any challenge to our coherence as a nation.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly his comments prompted some angry reactions, evidence that any reconciliation of the varied views on faith schools remain as distant as ever. 

ESSENTIAL QUALITIES

These varied views seem to reflect a certain lack of understanding of the true purpose of religion - showing instead an unhelpful preoccupation with those aspects and secondary forms of religious practice that, without a larger, world-embracing vision, have so often been used to accentuate differences rather than the shared.  There are certainly wide differences among the world’s major religious traditions with respect to social ordinances and forms of worship.  It could hardly be otherwise, given the thousands of years during which successive revelations of the Divine have addressed the changing needs of a constantly evolving human society. 

However in today’s multi-cultural, globally-aware world, while these differences may be rightly respected and taught as part of humankind’s heritage, what must be guarded against is the manipulation of such cultural legacies  (originating in obviously distinct cultural and geographical environments) to arouse disdain, distrust and alienation, or to ingrain in a new generation pre-existing prejudices.

Tenets and doctrines are not the essence of religion, nor is a scholarly familiarity with them a prerequisite of the truly religious life.  True religion, when it has been faithful to the spirit and example that gave the world its great belief systems, has been expressed in the deeds and actions of its followers.  It has been a primary instigator of humanity’s moral development, awakening capacities to love, to forgive, to create, to dare greatly, to overcome prejudice, to sacrifice for the common good, and to discipline the impulses of animal instinct.  These are qualities essential to a truly cohesive and harmonious society.  Their cultivation might well be considered a function of any education system, and faith schools in particular (if faithful to this purpose) should play, it might be thought, a principal rôle in their nurturing.  Coercion and indoctrination in matters of faith vitiate the very principles of religion.  Today the free exploration and acceptance of religious belief are reflected in the spirit and intention of widely-accepted international human rights conventions, and it is not unreasonable to expect these sentiments to be reflected in faith-based education.  For if, as people of religious faith believe, the Creator is eternal and the centre of all existence, then the genuine and unfettered search for truth will lead to the truth, not error.

THE FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSE

The purpose of education, the Bahá’í Faith teaches, is to discover and develop those individual talents and capacities with which each human being has been endowed, so that each person may, to the degree possible, achieve fulfilment through their use and reach an understanding of his or her true nature.  It places great emphasis on learning, the use of the mind, and the expansion of human consciousness and understanding.  In addition to the promotion of broadly-based education in the sciences, the humanities and the arts, the Bahá’í Faith puts much emphasis on the cultivation of talents and abilities that will be of practical and cultural benefit to society at large. 

It seeks to foster the realization of the oneness of the world of humanity, so that each student may consciously realize that he or she is a brother or sister to all mankind irrespective of religion or race, and places great importance on raising the moral tone and sensitivity of the students, inculcating in them the highest ideals of ethical refinement.  Thus to be complete, education should focus not only upon the physical and the intellectual side of humankind but also on its spiritual and ethical dimensions, with care being taken to avoid ignorant fanaticism or bigotry.  In pursuit of this understanding, wherever in the world Bahá’í schools and children’s classes exist they are open to all, irrespective of the parents’ faith and beliefs, and require that boys and girls should follow essentially similar curricula.   

Underpinning this approach is the Bahá’í conviction that the fundamental purpose animating religion is to, ‘safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men’ [11]. ‘The purpose of religion is to establish unity and concord amongst the peoples of the world; make it not the cause of dissension and strife.’ ‘Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value.  Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom....’, wrote Bahá’u’lláh [12], ‘The whole purpose of religion is to change not only our thoughts but our acts,’ Bahá’í writings elsewhere explain. 

Present day concerns about the prevalence of anti-social behaviour, the ‘yob’ culture, and disruptive conduct in schools – symptoms, we believe, of a wider social malaise – provide a context within which to assess the rôle and place of faith schools and religious education.  If these provide a lead in producing better behaved, more community-aware, and socially-engaged individuals, they will have made a valuable and positive contribution to the stability of society.  The emphasis in Bahá’í teachings on the nurturing of good behaviour and the cultivation of courtesy makes clear the importance of individual conduct in securing a society which rather than fearing cultural diversity takes delight in it: surely the goal of an inclusive and diversified education system:

‘Training in morals and good conduct is far more important than book learning.  A child that is cleanly, agreeable, of good character, well-behaved - even though he be ignorant - is preferable to a child that is rude, unwashed, ill-natured, and yet becoming deeply versed in all the sciences and arts. 

The reason for this is that the child who conducts himself well, even though he be ignorant, is of benefit to others, while an ill-natured, ill-behaved child is corrupted and harmful to others, even though he be learned.  If, however, the child be trained to be both learned and good, the result is light upon light.’

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