IF YOU want to start an argument among a group of middle-class Brits, raise the subject of faith schools. Advocates of schools run by religious bodies say they do a good job of turning youngsters into well-rounded and successful adults, without exacerbating society's social and economic divisions and perhaps easing them. A report in that spirit has just been published by Theos, a religious-affairs think-tank. Opponents, like the British Humanist Association, say almost the opposite: that barriers of culture and class are being reinforced, and children are being indoctrinated with belief systems and behaviour codes which society as a whole is rejecting.
However intemperate these arguments become, they can only be conducted because there is some degree of consensus between reasonable secular-humanists and moderate advocates of religion about what a decent education should be. It's widely agreed that children should acquire some knowledge of their own religious heritage, if they have one, and of other spiritual traditions, in a way that promotes co-existence and mutual respect rather than hatred. It's generally agreed that education should avoid causing fissures within society and if possible help to close the existing ones. It is generally (though not universally) agreed that subjects like geology, astronomy and evolutionary biology should be taught in the light of the scientific consensus rather than any metaphysical beliefs. Supporters of teaching creationism in opposition to evolution are a small minority.
Qualified advocates of religious education don't really challenge the liberal-humanist consensus; they simply argue that faith-linked schools are one valid way of reaching a universally desired state of affairs. But every so often, there comes an abrupt reminder that there are operators in the educational system whose basic assumptions seem way outside any liberal consensus. One such reminder has just been delivered in the East Midlands.
To get a flavour of the row that is raging over the Al-Madinah school (pictured), a state-supported, Muslim-run establishment in Derby, it's enough to peruse the letter sent to the chair of the board of governors by Lord Nash, a junior minister responsible for schools. After threatening to terminate the school's funding unless some grave problems were addressed, he said the school's administrative trust was guilty of "failing to ensure the safety of children...delivering an unacceptably poor standard of education; discriminating in its policies and procedures towards female staff; and failing to discharge its duties and responsibilities" to the governors.
The minister demanded that the school "provide...written confirmation that you have ceased any practices and procedures that have as their reason, cause or effect that women and girls are treated less favourably than men or boys." It must also "notify all staff that they are not required to cover their hair if contrary to their religion or beliefs" and the text of this note should be sent to the minister for prior approval.
In the weeks prior to this furious missive, non-Muslim women teachers at the school had complained to their unions that they were being forced to cover their heads and enforce a regime of separation between boys and girls.
The school, which professes a "strong Islamic ethos" while opening its doors to non-Muslims, replied to the minister's letter by saying that it was co-operating with a raft of burdensome inspection procedures, some of them unexpected.
If only the inspections by Ofsted, the agency which monitors the quality of schools, really were as intrusive and unexpected as they should be. The agency has a track record of dealing very leniently with idiosyncratic educational institutions. Some of its reports on a category of school known as a Darul Uloom—which prepares boys to be imams or Islamic theologians, from the age of 13 to their twenties—have been fantastically generous in their willingness to give the benefit of all possible doubt.
Inspection with a light touch—in which school authorities and report-writers virtually colluded to clear up any small problems and show things in a favourable light—may have worked, just about, in a system where everybody (from teachers to parents to educationalists) had broadly similar assumptions about what would constitute a decent school. There is no such consensus among the people involved with Al-Madinah, which takes pupils between the ages of four and 16. At a minimum, such situations call for a tough and transparent system of monitoring, with a healthy distance between the inspectors and the inspected.