Telegraph.co.uk
Faith schools should be banned from selecting pupils on religious grounds because current admissions rules create community segregation, it is claimed today
State-funded Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh schools should be required to treat applications from non-religious families the same as those from believers, according to campaigners.
The comments came as a national survey found that almost three-quarters of adults were in favour of an overhaul of rules on faith school admissions.
Some 73 per cent of adults polled by ComRes said that primaries and secondaries should be banned from discriminating “against prospective pupils on religious grounds”. Fewer than a fifth of the 2,000 people surveyed agreed with current rules.
The survey – commissioned by the Accord Coalition – comes just days before parents in Richmond, west London, are due to make appeals to the High Court as part of a long-running fight against the opening of a new Roman Catholic school in the borough.
But any changes to faith school admissions rules are likely to be strongly resisted by religious leaders.
Schools are NOT being asked to change their syllabus and as such it is a good proposal.