Tory education chief Michael Gove has colluded to hand over control of thousands of nominally secular state schools to the Church of England. In an unprecedented and totally unnecessary move, Church of England academy chains will have a new ability to incorporate community schools. The Government has given assurances that the Church would not be able to give the community schools a religious character once they take over control of them, yet that seems extremely weak given that Bishops will have a new ability to appoint governors to the schools.
The Tory-led Government’s religious academies and Free Schools have wide permission to discriminate on religious grounds in admissions, employment, and they do not have to follow the National Curriculum. We are deeply concerned that there will be few protections in place to stop the Church forcing all schools under its control to discriminate or teach religiously-biased curricula.
Faith schools by their very nature cannot be inclusive. We think it is vital for Stephen Twigg and Labour’s education team to speak out against this move which can only cause more division in our state school system.