Faith schools and manipulative language
OB at Butterflies and Wheels picked up on this article in which Blair asserts the need to keep religious schools.
The prime minister said axing Muslim schools would mean ending Catholic, Jewish and Protestant schools too.
Sounds reasonable to me.
“Realpolitik” would prevent such a move, said Mr Blair.
Realpolitik. n. Euphamism for political cowardice in the face of virulent attacks from the Daily Mail.
He said it was “perfectly consistent” in a multi-racial, multi-religious society for people to want their children educated in their own faith.
Sure. I see no reason why people can’t teach their children about their religions. At home. On their own time. And not at the taxpayers expense.
Schools are for education, not religious indoctrination.
The prime minister highlighted how his own children had attended Catholic schools.
The prime minister can afford to have his kids indoctrinated. Is that really something to be proud of?
He stressed that he backed faith schools, including Muslim schools, which were part of the “proper” school system.
The “proper” school system? Since when was religious indoctrination part of the “proper” school system.
Faith schools - including Muslim, Christian and any other religious acadamies - should have no place in a modern education system. I know I’m repeating myself now, but the purpose of schools should be to provide an education, not to indoctrinate youngsters in medieval superstitions.
And he insisted the schools did not teach children to “look at children of other faiths in a bad way” and often contained some pupils from other religions.
So how does he know that religious schools don’t teach children to “look at children of other faiths in a bad way?” Does he have some statistics - a comparison between the behaviours of students from religious and secular schools, for example - to support this assertion, or is it the case that he believes it because it’s convenient to do so.
The best bit, however, is in the second part of Blair’s claim, that religious schools “and often contained some pupils from other religions.” Because, if he really does believe that it’s a good thing to have pupils from different religious backgrounds in the same school, surely the best way forward would be to scrap all religious schools and allow all pupils from all backgrounds to mix in a secular educational environment.
And finally, we get to the manipulative language…
Mr Blair said parents were attracted to such schools because they provided a “strong ethos and values”.
Ah yes… “strong ethos and values.” Something you only find in religious schools, hey Tony?
Values like lying.
Because surely Blair is aware that the reason most people send their kids to religious schools is because religious schools are selective. And selective schools can exclude problem children. And if the problem children have been excluded, there is more time for the rest of the student population. So children who can get into selective schools do better than those that can’t.
This “ethos and values” claim is rubbish, and Blair knows it.
Sunday 31 Jul 2005 | Paul | The Pit
