UNITED KINGDOM, September 9, 2007: Ministers paved the way for more State-funded Muslim, Sikh and Hindu schools yesterday with a pledge to remove “unnecessary barriers” to religious groups. Ed Balls, the children’s minister, said additional money would be made available to allow the hundreds of private religious schools to convert to the state sector. It is thought the move will lead to a rise in the number of religious places for Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Seventh Day Adventist and Greek Orthodox children. In a speech yesterday, Mr. Balls insisted the expansion would be tempered by new rules forcing all schools to promote better race relations and understanding between religious groups. He also pledged that officials would “root out” any school guilty of using banned admissions rules such as over-complicated application forms and interviewing pupils to discriminate against certain children. In a further move, he said new privately-sponsored city academies run by faith groups would have to admit at least half of children from other faiths and non-believing families.
Teaching unions and secular groups branded the plans “plain madness” which would fuel social segregation. But Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, rejected the idea that church schools “indoctrinate” children. “They offer not a program of indoctrination, but the possibility of developing a greater level of community cohesion through the understanding of how faith shapes common life,” he said. Some 7,000 of the 21,000 state schools in England are religious, with almost all linked to the Anglican and Catholic churches. However, ministers say there are not enough places for children of other religions, particularly those from Muslim, Sikh, and HIndu families. A guidance document, Faith in the System, published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families yesterday, said that local councils should “remove unnecessary barriers to the creation of new faith schools” by making it easier for them to convert to the state sector.