A new campaign has launched which wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief. The Fair Admissions Campaign has support from a wide coalition of individuals and national and local organisations, including theBritish Humanist Association (BHA). We are affiliated to the BHA and fully support the aims of the Fair Admissions Campaign.
Our position
Labour Humanists advocates an inclusive and accommodating education system, and we oppose religious discrimination in admissions and employment by state-funded faith schools.
Schools selecting pupils on the basis of the professed faith of the parents are segregating children and young people along religious, socio-economic, cultural, and even ethnic lines. As such, discriminatory faith schools pose a big threat to social cohesion in this country. They also play their part in increasing social inequality, often taking the highest achieving students from their local areas, becoming what are in effect grammar schools by a different name. Their admissions policies also tend to favour those from more affluent backgrounds over children from poorer backgrounds.
Labour Humanists would like to see:
- No new faith school being allowed to select in its admissions
- Faith schools’ existing discriminatory admissions policies to be abolished and they cannot apply in future
Find out more about the Fair Admissions Campaign and how you can get involved.
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