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
Ireland strongly criticised by UN for domination of religious schools over education system
Posted: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 16:58
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has called on Ireland to "increase the number of non-denominational schools" in its education system.
CESCR has urged Ireland to "review admissions policies of all schools with a view to removing all discriminatory criteria for enrolment and establish a regulatory mechanism to monitor school policies, including admissions policies".
The highly critical report recommended that Ireland "step up its efforts" to make education "inclusive".
Responding to the latest critical UN report, Atheist Ireland, which promotes "atheism, reason and an ethical, secular state", commented: "Both major UN Human Rights Committees have now condemned Ireland's lack of separation of church and state in education and other laws. Last year it was the Committee on Civil and Political Rights, and this year it is the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights."
"Atheist Ireland has now succeeded in getting four UN Committees to call for secular education in Ireland. These are the Committees on Civil and Political Rights, ESC Rights, the Rights of the Child, and Racial Discrimination."
In April 2015, Educate Together, an NGO which runs inclusive, multi-denominational schools in Ireland, said that control of education by religious bodies had reached "shocking" levels. 97% of the Irish primary school system is run by religious denominations.
"There are still large areas of the country where parents have no alternative but to send their children to denominational schools", their CEO Paul Rowe said.
National Secular Society campaigns manager Stephen Evans commented: "Ireland has extraordinary levels of religious control over primary education in particular. Religious influence or control of state education should be a thing of the past, not a prospect for the future. Clearly the educational offering in Ireland needs to change – and likewise in the UK, where faith-based, taxpayer funded education is equally inappropriate and undesirable.
The CESCR report was also scathing about Ireland's "highly restrictive legislation on abortion" and the "strict interpretation" of the legislation. The committee were "particularly concerned at the criminalization of abortion, including in the cases of rape and incest and of risk to the health of a pregnant woman."
CESCR called on the Irish Government to hold a referendum on abortion and to "revise its legislation."
NSS welcomes closure of school inspectorate with alleged extremist links
Posted: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:17
The National Secular Society has welcomed the news that the Bridge Schools Inspectorate (BSI) is to close, after strongly criticising the organisation for the extremist views of some of its inspectors.
Andrew Gilligan reported in the Telegraph on Sunday 14 June that the BSI will now "cease operations in October after coming under strong pressure from ministers and Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools."
The NSS warned in May 2014 that "religious hardliners" were inspecting independent faith schools and wrote to Ofsted in a consultation response to express its concerns about links between the BSI and religious extremists.
NSS campaigns manager Stephen Evans commented: "There must be rigorous inspection of independent religious schools, with fair and impartial inspectors. It has been clear for a very long time that the BSI was tainted by association with inspectors who hold extreme religious views; the evidence has been out there for many years- so this is welcome, if long overdue, news."
The BSI was set up in 2008 to inspect private Muslim and Christian faith schools that are members of the Association of Muslim Schools UK (AMS-ULK) or the Christian Schools' Trust (CST). The NSS has consistently warned that it was wholly inappropriate to have faith schools reviewed by their own special inspectorate- and that many of the organisation's inspectors held extremely troubling views.
Lord Baker, the former Conservative Secretary of State for Education warned in 2006 "it'll be much easier for extremists to infiltrate [independent schools] and to radicalise the students" if Muslim faith schools were inspected by what he called "a separate inspectorate for Muslim schools."
The NSS has previously warned that "a number of the individuals carrying out inspections on behalf of BSI hold homophobic, misogynistic, anti-apostate and creationist views."
The Society noted to Ofsted in 2014 that: "One inspector highlighted in reports is Ibrahim Hewitt, who is the founder and chair of trustees of the Al-Aqsa school in Leicester. Mr Hewitt has been reported to have said that adulterers should be stoned to death, that a man can take on a second wife if his first fails to satisfy him sexually, and [he] has compared gay people to paedophiles."
The Telegraph report on the BSI said that "some schools [inspected by the BSI] use racist and anti-Semitic textbooks blaming the Jews for the ills of the world."
In one school rated as "good" by the BSI , the Telegraph reports that a teacher was secretly recorded telling children they must choose either "the way of the Prophet" or "the way of the kuffar."
The BSI has blamed "unforeseen staffing pressures" for its termination as an independent inspectorate.
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)
