Faith schools undermine equality, choice and social cohesion.
Let's build an inclusive education system today, to ensure an inclusive society tomorrow.
Our education system should be open and welcoming to all. That's why we want publicly funded faith schools phased out and an end to religiously selective school admissions.
Around a third of publicly funded schools in England and Wales are faith schools – schools with a religious character. Scottish and Northern Irish schools are still divided along sectarian lines.
Separating children according to religion is divisive and leads to religious, ethnic and socio-economic segregation.
To make matters worse, many faith schools can discriminate against pupils and teachers who do not share the religion of the school.
Parents are entitled to raise their children within a faith tradition, but they are not entitled to enlist the help of the state to do so. The state should not allow the schools it funds to inculcate children into a particular religion.
Faith schools seriously limit choice for parents who do not want a religious education for their children, or do not share the faith of the local school. Our research has found that 18,000 families were assigned faith schools against their wishes in England in 2017 alone.
Despite a consistent and dramatic decline in church attendance, and a growing majority of non-religious citizens, successive governments have paved the way for ever greater religious involvement in education, often to the detriment of inclusive community schools.
A secular approach to education would ensure publicly funded schools are equally welcoming to all children, regardless of their backgrounds.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Please call on your MP to support a secular, inclusive education system for all.
2. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
3. Join us
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
Former deputy chair of NI education committee says teaching evolution ‘corrupts children’
Posted: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 08:27
Thomas Buchanan, a DUP MLA, has endorsed an event which seeks to teach creationism to children and said creationism should be taught "in every school".
The DUP Assembly member said: "I long to see the day when every school in Northern Ireland will stand up and teach creationism, and turn away from the peddled lie that is evolution."
The Irish News reported that the event, entitled, 'Reaching Children in an Evolutionised World', will include a talk that would "offer helpful practical advice on how to counter evolutionary teaching".
It offers "the biblical case for the sound teaching of children."
The event is run by Creation Outreach Ministries, who also offer school lecturing. Their mission statement says they "seek to encourage confidence in the absolute authority of the Scriptures, especially in relation to the Biblical account of creation. We endeavour to equip Christians on this matter, reach the wider community with the Gospel of Christ's salvation, contend against the theory of evolution and glorify God the Creator."
Mr Buchanan said: "I'm someone who believes in creationism and that the world was spoken into existence in six days by His power.
"I commend those behind this event for bringing forward a programme of reaching out to children who have been corrupted by the teaching of evolution."
Colin Morrison, chair of Atheist NI, commented: "This is exploiting the trust of children, whose instinct is to believe their elders. It harms their future life chances and mental health. It's wrong, and I would appeal to schools to refrain from allowing any of this into the classroom."
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns director, said it was "astonishing that such an enthusiastic advocate for creationism can hold a position with direct influence over young people's education.
"Creationism offers no scientific alternative to evolution and has no place in the classroom. Educators everywhere should be vigilant against groups seeking to use schools to push anti-science religious dogma on impressionable young minds."
Buchanan previously sat as the Deputy Chair of the Northern Ireland Employment and Learning Committee. He still serves as the Chairperson of the Assembly All Party Group on Cancer and Secretary.
He previously said that homosexuality was an "abomination".
UK must honour equality and human rights obligations, NSS tells UN
Posted: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:54
The National Secular Society has urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to recommend to the UK Government that it abolish religious discrimination in faith schools' admissions procedures.
The call came in a wide-ranging submission for the UK's periodic review by the United Nations in which the NSS highlighted a number of areas where individual rights are being restricted by undue religious influence.
The NSS said that previous recommendations on human rights and equality had not been acted on by the UK.
The submission highlights the UK's failure to address religious discrimination in 'faith' school admissions and employment practices – and is highly critical of Government plans to increase levels of discrimination by allowing more religiously selective schools by removing the existing 50% cap.
The submission also highlights a number of other areas where the UK's record of upholding human rights is poor, including abortion access in Northern Ireland, caste discrimination, and FGM.
Discrimination in faith schools
The NSS raised serious concerns about the UK's failure to address religious discrimination in 'faith' school admissions procedures and employment practices.
Equality Act exceptions permit schools designated as having a religious character to select pupils by reference to faith where the school is oversubscribed. The Government has recently announced plans to remove a 50% cap of faith-based admissions for newly established schools ('free schools') enabling them apply 100% religious selection in admissions.
The NSS submission noted that whilst the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child had previously called on the UK to "actively promote a fully integrated education system" (in the context of Northern Ireland), the UK's response has been to facilitate greater levels of religious segregation in English faith schools.
The Government has recently acknowledged that in minority faith schools in England the ethnic make-up is overwhelmingly formed of pupils from predominantly similar ethnic (and very likely religious) backgrounds.
Our submission recommended that the UK eliminates religious selection in admissions procedures to publicly-funded schools and amend legislation to ensure that religious discrimination in employment at faith schools is limited to positions where there is a genuine occupational requirement.
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
The Society urged the Human Rights Council to echo the recommendation of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and call on the UK to repeal legal provisions for compulsory worship and Religious Observance in UK schools and ensure that young people have the independent right to opt-out of any acts of worship held in schools.
Right to education
The NSS raised concerns about children in the UK being schooled in unregistered and sometimes illegal settings, and being denied their right to a broad and balanced secular education.
Our submission recommended that the UK develops a more robust strategy for protecting the rights and interests of children, including instituting a system to ensure it has accurate information about where every child is being educated and regularly reporting on the number of children missing from the formal education system either through home-schooling, supplementary, or illegal unregistered 'schools', taking investigative steps where children are unaccounted for, and closing down illegal schools.
Gender-based violence
The NSS raised serious concerns at the UK's failure to successfully prosecute a single case of female genital mutilation (FGM).
Alarmingly, 30 years after FGM was made illegal in the UK, a 2016 Home Affairs Committee report found that "some clinicians are ignoring the duty on frontline healthcare professionals, social care workers and teachers to record data on FGM incidence".
The submission urged the UN to question the UK Government on the current state of their strategy and stress to the UK that the universality of individual Human Rights should be upheld and not overridden on the grounds of religion, tradition or culture.
Abortion in Northern Ireland
Our submission highlighted the UK's failure to act on an earlier Human Rights Council recommendation to "Ensure by legislative and other measures that women in Northern Ireland are entitled to safe and legal abortion on equal basis with women living in other parts of the United Kingdom."
Since 2012 the situation in Northern Ireland and the UK Government's failure to act has, if anything, become more concerning.
The NSS called on the Human Rights Council to reiterate recommendations on abortion access in Northern Ireland
Freedom of expression
The submission was also an opportunity to raise concerns about the Government's apparently stalled proposals for 'extremism disruption orders'.
Ill-thought out measures with an ill-defined notion of non-violence extremism "risk capturing a whole range of behaviour and speech", the NSS warned.
"The UK already has sufficient legalisation in place to combat hate speech, including incitement to violence or hatred. Additional restrictions on free speech can only further jeopardise and chill freedom of expression."
Caste discrimination
The NSS took the opportunity of the UPR to restate its criticisms of the Government on the issue of caste discrimination.
"We recommend the UK legislate to implement its international obligations in respect of caste, in line with its human rights obligations, as recommended by the UN, and indeed as required by the UK Parliament," the NSS submission said.
This issue of caste-based discrimination was additionally raised at the United Nations Human Rights Council by the NSS this week.
More information
Protect relationships and sex education
Age-appropriate relationships and sex education should be every child’s right.
Remove religious appointees from Scottish councils
Religion shouldn’t grant people privileged places in local democracy.
Research and reports
The faith schools research bank
The choice delusion: how faith schools restrict school choice
Three in ten families across England live in areas where most or all of the closest primary schools are faith schools and thousands are being assigned faith schools against their wishes.
Power grab: Academisation and the threat to secular education
Academisation has enabled faith groups to increase their influence over all schools, including those with no religious character. With little public debate, religious governance has increased, while secular oversight has diminished.
Religiosity inspections: the case against faith-based reviews of state schools
Faith based inspections of state schools are an unnecessary drain on public finds, frame widely held values as exclusive, and promote biased religious education.
Faith-shaped holes: How religious privilege is undermining equality law (PDF, 1.3 Mb)
