A Matter Of Faith

The Telegraph reports on the Government’s latest attack today on independent faith schools by the creepily titled Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls.

Since the 1960s, when Labour’s Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland first decided on the importance of controlling society through culture rather than just the economy, the political Left have ideologically pursued a comprehensive state education system whose aim has been ‘equality’ rather than to give children a good and rigorous education.

It should also be said that much of the Left have not actually changed their views or indeed their end goals in any conceivable way. What they have done is simply changed the way in which they have gone about achieving those goals, through culture and social engineering rather than economic means.

What is more, unsurprisingly for a party (the Conservatives) who tend to measure their success in office by how many years they have occupied 10 Downing Street, rather than what they have actually achieved in that time, then they have been completely outmanoeuvred by this fundamental shift in attention by the Left.

In fact, in an effort to remain in office, rather than in power, the Conservatives have consistently accepted and adopted the Left’s proposals on education – especially regarding comprehensive schooling and the reintroduction of academic selection – along with many other issues, as can now be seen once again under the leadership of David Cameron.

Returning again to the matter of independent faith schools, they are most certainly next in Labour’s sights as the Government attempts to gain its coveted monopoly over primary and secondary education. Incidentally, for the same ideological reasons, the Government have also recently attacked home schooling (which has seen a dramatic increase in recent years as parents have realised how thoroughly the comprehensive education system is failing their children) by claiming without basis that home education may be a cover for child abuse.

Peter Hitchens, who covered in some depth the Government’s attacks on home schooling, perceptively observed:

What the modern left really don’t like about homeschooling is that it is independent of the state, and threatens its egalitarian monopoly from below. If it became a mass movement, it would be very dangerous to their project of enforcing equality of outcome, while using the schools to push radical ideas on sex, drugs, morality and politics.

Much the same can be said for faith schools. They challenge the state’s egalitarian monopoly and that is why our Labour Government will, in due course, attempt to bring them to heel. In that sense The Telegraph story perfectly illustrates the classic way in which the Labour party first attacks its chosen target. The Telegraph’s Education Editor, Graeme Paton, writes:

Ed Balls insisted ‘concerns’ had been raised about the extent to which [faith] schools were preparing pupils for ‘life in wider British society’.

But by whom exactly have these mysterious ‘concerns’ been raised? Parents? Teachers, perhaps? Trade Unions? Nope. It doesn’t take long to find out where these ‘concerns’ have originated from, with the next paragraph reading:

It follows a report last month from the think-tank Civitas which claimed some Islamic schools were promoting fundamentalist views.

So, we have the source. A think-tank. Not criticism from parents, or teachers or trade unions or any other such organisation actually related to the schools in question, but a think-tank.

In addition, it’s not even all faith schools that have raised these pressing ‘concerns’ but specifically a small minority of Islamic educational institutions. But, of course, while these supposed ‘concerns’ may only be directed at a small number of faith schools, any Governmental legislative or regulatory response will be targeted at all faith schools, regardless of religion.

Here we have not the reason but the excuse for government intervention, however tenuous the supporting evidence may be. Furthermore, when the comprehensive state education system has, in the opinion of many, an increasingly poor record of preparing pupils for ‘life in wider British society’ – whatever that phrase may really mean – then the Government hardly have the moral high ground in criticising independent establishments.

This leads us back to the original point that the Labour party and much of the modern left are not interested in rigorous and good education, but are instead ideologically committed to instilling in all children radical ideas on sex, drugs, morality and politics, as well as attempting to enforce equality of outcome, whatever the cost of such an exercise may be.

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