Terry Sanderson: How did our education system become a playground for theocrats?
The Church of England, as we know, sucks huge amounts of money from the public purse for the purposes of promoting its particular brand of religion. We’ve already talked about the £60 million or so spent on chaplains in hospitals and the armed services. Now we are seeing the new crop of academy schools beginning to advertise for chaplains, too.
Academy schools are, of course, funded by the taxpayer, so it seems we’ll soon be stumping up tens of millions more for the further promotion of religion among children.
We can get a flavour of what is to come from a recruitment advertisement in the Church Times. The Trinity Academy in Halifax, a Church of England-sponsored school is looking for a chaplain (“sponsored” seems to indicate that the Church is paying something towards this – it isn’t).
The salary being offered is between £37,461 and £49,130 and will be based at the new £30 million “state-of-the-art” facility.
The advert reads: “With a distinct Christian ethos, the academy is a fantastic opportunity for a Chaplain to join our Senior Leadership Team. This is a key role for the academy, and our sponsors. As Chaplain you will be responsible for the strategic leadership of the spiritual character of the academy, the development of collective worship, spiritual support and the interpretation of Christianity in all that we do… The role is unique. In liaison with local clergy, you will have the opportunity to develop a congregation for collective worship using our beautiful ‘sacred space’ – a chapel right in the centre of the new building…”
From this description it is unclear whether this is primarily a school or a church. It certainly seems that the school will act as a kind of theological centre for the Church of England in Halifax. And the pupils are going to have religion thrust on them from the day’s beginning to its end.
Is this what taxpayers wanted when they agreed to build a new school for their children?
Why are we allowing the Church of England — and presumably other religious “sponsors” — to theocratise our education system in such a heavy-handed way? And why are we permitting them to hijack the education budget to pay the wages of their propagandists? Is this really what schools are for?
This comes in a week when the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reveals in a report (pdf) that the education budget for England is to be slashed by 14%. This includes large cuts in school buildings and repairs. The Guardian quoted a Government spokesperson as saying it was “right to look at the amount of money being spent on school buildings. An independent review had shown that taxpayers’ money was being wasted on red tape and consultants, not on building schools.”
Red tape and consultants are not the only things the Government is wasting taxpayers’ money on.
From National Secular Society
~Mooglets
