Meanwhile, just when you think sanity is returning to politics in Northern Ireland, Dr Ian Paisley’s DUP party are attempting to coerce schools into teaching creationism in science lessons as an alternative to evolution.

Tonight will see DUP councillors in Lisburn officially propose a motion that schools in Lisburn  be encouraged to "teach alternative theories to evolution as the origins of the earth, such as Creation and Intelligent Design."

The proposal has been opposed by SDLP councillors and received a mixed response from Ulster Unionist members:

Cllr Givan from the DUP said: "I have never believed in the theory of evolution and,
like many people believe in the teaching of creation. I believe science
points to creation but our schools are teaching a very narrow remit and
many exclude alternative theories to evolution. I have asked the
Council to write to local schools encouraging them to give equality of
treatment to other theories of the origins of life and how the earth
came into existence." However, other committee members voiced their
objection to the proposal. The committee’s Vice Chairman, SDLP
Councillor Peter O’Hagan, said: "I think it is a dangerous road to go
down for Lisburn Council to be getting involved in school curriculum.

It’s hard to imagine within the mainstream UK education system this loony attempt at undermining children’s education would getting anywhere near to succeeding….unless of course, the schools involved were faith schools or city academies, in which case dogma can be given a special place over science. In reading a debate on this story on the Richard Dawkins web site I was rather amused by this response:

Mr Givan said: "I have never believed in the theory of birth by sexual
reproduction and, like many people, believe in teaching that the stork
is responsible. I believe science points to stork theory but our
schools are teaching a very narrow remit and many exclude alternative
theories to sexual reproduction. I have asked the Council to write to
local schools encouraging them to give equality of treatment to other
theories of the origins of life and how babies come into existence."

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I hear many colleagues extol the virtues of Religious Education in schools as an essential tool in buidling a multi-belief, tolerant society. I fear their understanding of the function of RE differs greatly to the churches themselves and those people who get to set the curriculum. Their primary purpose is to ensure that children "get god". Philip Beadle explains some of the dodgy agendas written into RE lessons:

"The framework (for RE) is about as sane as these things can be, given that it
has to accommodate viewpoints as diverse as the Russian Orthodox church
and the British Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists – pretty
well all perspectives on religious education in fact (aside, of course,
from those of the National Secular Society). It is when we delve into
the realms of suggested practice that it all gets a bit Old Testament.

The
Standards Site for teachers features schemes of work for key stage 3
that could have been written by Billy Graham. Creationism on the
curriculum is not happening only in the American Bible belt or outposts
on Teesside: the government recommends it as a topic for study in every
school. The suggested learning outcomes say that all year 9 pupils
should be able to "explain the nature and meanings of the Genesis
creation story for theists, creationists and others". The intent is
that children "understand that science leaves questions of ultimate
meaning and purpose unanswered".

There is a logical pedagogic
link here that, though it may have been intended to promote a mature,
dialectical approach, actually gives permission and approval to those
who want to teach creationism as fact. First, you teach the theory,
then question science’s ability to answer questions about our genesis.

The
aim of this scheme of work is that children "understand that historians
of science now view the conflict account as misleading". Let me unpack
this disgracefully disingenuous phrase for you: the government’s
desired final outcome of religious studies teaching in British schools
is that children realise there is no conflict between religious belief
and the evidence of science. This is a lie, the extent of which hits
the three criteria for a mortal sin: it is grave, committed in full
knowledge of the sin and deliberate.

It goes further. I had
always suspected that the mark schemes rewarded blind obedience to a
theistic point of view: "List 10 reasons why God exists" (10 marks),
"Come up with a shaky reason He might not" (1 mark). These suspicions
are confirmed with a look at the Standards Site’s exemplar materials.
The first scheme of work suggested for pupils on entry to secondary
school is full of arguments for the existence of a deity. There ain’t
much there for secularists to sing about."

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Amazingly, there is still a reluctance to accept in debate that faith schools exam results come from their ability, stealthily deployed, to select their pupils and weed out the ones they don’t like, who naturally, will go to a local community school instead. This week we see yet more evidence of how faith schools, this time in London, introduce growing levels of inequality within our schools system.

Rebecca Allen, of the Institute of Education, University of London, and Professor Anne West, Professor of Education Policy at the London School of Economics, studied the intake of faith schools across the capital using an extensive ‘pupil-level’ database compiled by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. They found faith schools are cherry pick too many children from affluent families and contribute to racial and religious segregation.

Their research also showed 17 per cent of pupils at faith schools are eligible for free school meals compared with 25 per cent at non-religious schools. Faith schools educate just under 20 per cent of lowest-ability pupils compared with 31 per cent of non-religious schools. Faith schools also educate a greater proportion of the pupils who score highest before arriving in secondary education.

Isn’t time for supporters of faith schools to come clean? The consequences of your support is the growing use of social selection in school admissions and ever growing segregation of our local communities.

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Some strong reaction today from press commentators to the joint statement supporting more tax funded faith schools. It’s not just me who thought the the joint statment to be intellectually weak so much so perhaps it deserves the modern tag of dodgy dossier?

As Thomas Sutcliffe in the Independent notes:

"…because their joint statement on the
  expansion of faith schools, Faith in the System, is strangely insistent on
  the ability of religious education to "promote community cohesion"
  . The phrase is used again and again throughout this flabby and abject
  document, as if sufficient repetition will induce a hypnotic state of
  acquiescence.

  And I don’t think you have to be a signed-up Freudian to wonder whether the
  reason it occurs so frequently is because the people who drafted the
  statement are uncomfortably aware that it’s the very last thing that faith
  schools are likely to do. Indeed, if they didn’t believe that then, why did
  the Government attempt (unsuccessfully) to impose regulations about the
  admission of other or no faith pupils? It’s axiomatic: if faith schools
  increase in number and if more parents choose them, then the consequence
  will be community dis-integration.

  Faith in the System doesn’t actually include a single piece of hard evidence
  that faith schools will "promote community cohesion". Nor does it
  seriously address any of the important issues about conflicts between
  religious teaching and the National Curriculum, or between employment rights
  and doctrinal prejudice. It simply offers a number of anecdotal examples of
  faith schools which attempt to redress their own cultural homogeneity with
  exchange visits, comparative religion studies and outreach programmes.

  Bizarrely, these schools are actually commended for adopting corrective
  measures to deal with a problem – ignorance of other cultures and faiths –
  that they have themselves aggravated. Instead of studying alongside children
  of different faiths and cultures, experiencing from day to day the countless
  things they have in common, pupils will be introduced to other faiths as
  part of the curriculum – effectively as an exercise in comparative
  anthropology. And, as I say, not one hard fact that supports the case – just
  a string of bland truisms and pious assurances. I suppose we’re just meant
  to take the rest on faith."

Francis Beckett writing in the Guardian draws our intention to the sad hypocrisy of the church leaders who pay lip service to cohesion, but have other, much more selfish intentions, in their drive to take over our community schools:

"Faith schools, we’re told in the document released today, Faith in the System,
have "a long and noble tradition", and predate state education. There’s
a subtext here. Churches were once the gatekeepers for education, and
the state had little involvement. Having made a compact with the state
in 1944, they are now trying to claw back that power – but using public
money, not their own."

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