Faith schools - divisive or not?

Father Paul Daly

Plans for faith groups to lead academies flies in the face of new research showing single ethnicity schools damage community relations.

A two-year research project, launched after the riots in neighbouring Oldham, found that mono-culture schools should be avoided as they divide communities.

Teachers’ unions backed the findings, by experts at Lancaster University, and said academies led by faith groups would not achieve the diversity needed to unite the borough.

Education chiefs insist the academies will be open to all.

There are no academies currently planned in Rochdale, or Heywood, however, there is an academy in Middleton, St Anne's and there are faith schools. Father Paul Daly, priest at St Joseph's, Heywood, and also the Chairman of Governors at one such school, Holy Family, said in response: “Catholic schools have never been ‘single ethnic’. Evidence, for example, shows that Catholic primary schools often reflect the ethnic mix of a town more so than state schools. Rochdale residents need only to look at the excellent work being done by St. John’s RC Primary School, Rochdale, to see this.

"One of the reasons faith schools are popular is because many parents of a faith background wish to see the ethos of their children’s schools reflecting the ethos of the home. As Pope Benedict XVI said recently to the priests of his own Diocese of Rome: 'An education that is not at the same time an education with God and in the presence of God, an education that does not transmit the great ethical values that have appeared in the light of Christ, is not education. Professional formation is never sufficient without the formation of the heart. And the heart cannot be formed without, at least, the challenge of the presence of God. We know that many youth live in environments, in situations, that make the light and the Word of God inaccessible. They are in life situations that represent a true slavery, not just exterior, but that provoke an intellectual slavery that obscures the truth in the heart and in the mind.'

"A secular education which seeks to educate the person intellectually, physically and emotionally but which neglects the spiritual formation of our young people is a model of education which, to my mind, leaves the young person short-changed and society impoverished. No school would dream of saying today ‘our job is to teach you the subjects; what you eat at school is none of our business – schools are sensitive to the need to promote the physical well-being of pupils. Why is their spiritual well-being seen to be divisive?’

"Education in a faith context does not mean ignorance of other faiths. Every pupil in a Catholic school learns about the key beliefs and practises of the other world religions.”