Faith schools are a terrible idea. I’m not only referring to the fact kids who go to these schools are taught a great degree of non-sense, or that a significant proportion of the British population disproves of them. The biggest problem with these schools is they segregate the population along religious lines, and in any multicultural society, this is extremely undesirable.

Britain has over 7000 faith based schools, the vast majority of them being primary. There were relatively few before Tony Blair’s government decided they were a good idea, and since then they’ve been springing up like hotcakes. Blair, the neo-con that he was, probably thought it would be a cheap way to educate kids, since the thinking was church money would pay for at least part of the cost. So far, the state pays roughly 90% of the operation costs. Nice one, Tony.

Now teachers are displeased, and realize the education policies of these schools are preventing kids from becoming properly integrated into society, and they are trying to make sweeping changes which would in effect obliterate the way these schools do business. I’m unsure how much pull they have, but I’m glad there are at least a few people out there who are fighting to end the ability for state funded faith schools to operate.