Exclusive schools

A few weeks ago I thought I came up with a radical new policy, that any school which selected its pupils on whatever basis (religion, income, intelligence, gender) should have to prove that they had a substantial programme in place to integrate with whichever group they were excluding (ie not just a once a year boys' school/girls' school disco) or else their state funding or charitable status would be withdrawn. Many private schools already do something along these lines, such as twinning with a struggling state school, because of threats made to their charitable status if they do not do something 'charitable' for the community. Now St Paul's, one of the top London private boys' schools is saying they will admit pupils exclusively on merit, regardless of income. By the way, I find it very British of the head to say that he is looking for a sense of irony in pupils - I can't imagine schools in other countries placing much value on irony.

And last week Alan Johnson announced that the Education and Inspection Bill will be changed to specify that any new faith schools must offer up to a quarter of their places to non-faith children. I wish old faith schools could be targeted somehow too.  I don't understand why the Catholic education service is reacting angrily - surely this is a great opportunity to convert non-Catholics, unless they think going to a Catholic school is more likely to put them off Catholicism.  I went to a Catholic school in Japan at the ages of 7 and 8, and hardly any of the pupils were Catholic, nor was the school particularly academically attractive, but the nuns running the place made it very clear that the school had a Catholic ethos, and we were all taught to pray.  (Check out the archaic sailor uniforms we all had to wear!)

Although the experience did not make me a Catholic, the Japanese rather than Catholic values of the school had a profound influence on me.   The school did not not exclude non-believers or regard non-Catholics as inferior, but I worry that British schools who do exclude non-believers and which preach that one faith is more worthy than another, or that those with no faith are worthless, will affect the values of children in their formative years, brainwashing them into a religious mono-identity and not allow reasoned, rational choice of identities, a fear which Amartya Sen (see quote heading this blog) also has.

Update:  See also David Aaronovitch - also asking why only new faith schools are targetted by the proposals.