The Arc of Faith-Based Institutions in the United Kingdom
Professor Alice Roberts is the President of Humanists UK. Recently, she, through the online news distribution of Humanists UK, spoke to the concerns about the continued overreach of religious schools in general in the United Kingdom.
There is a fundraiser, where you can donate. Humanists UK has been a bulwark against the negative efforts of faith schools with the “campaign against the negative impacts of faith schools.”
The purpose is to replace the faith schools — the privileged endorsement of religion through public money, in effect — with “open, inclusive, and non-discriminatory education for all.”
One can see similar efforts in Canadian society with the work for a single, secular, and public school system rather than a mixed one with Catholic getting an entirely separate school system. Something of a holdover from a mostly bygone era. Canadian society is changing fast.
We can adapt to this change as a collective community and work for greater equality of the increasing diversification of the population, and increasing scientific and technological sophistication of the general population.
Humanists UK stated, “That work is carried out by one Dr Ruth Wareham. She leads our fight against the outdated anomaly of state-funded faith schools in the UK… Selective religious schools create social division — segregating children instead of bringing communities together.”
The fundraising will support this work for one more year. Wareham has been setting forth calls for “crackdown” on harmful and discriminatory — and illegal — religious schools in the United Kingdom operating right under the noses of the public.
This information would not be present without the work of whistleblowers. The impacts of the religious schools can be on standard educational curricula, but also on the sexual health and wellbeing — based on better knowledge — of the students as they develop into more sexual beings, as they grow sexual identities in the course of adolescent development.
“Ruth has also been at the forefront of work to safeguard an inclusive, factual curriculum about relationships and sex. She continues to challenge the Government to support schools,” Humanists UK stated, “even as ministers come under pressure from hardline religious and homophobic protesters around the country. It’s a crucial battle: in the debate between facts and religious dogma, facts must prevail.”
The research has shown the parental choice reduction and the social divisions developed through the works of the religious schools. In a pluralistic democracy, such as the UK — and as an example to elsewhere, there should be due consideration and concern on the subject matter of fundamentalist schools in the United Kingdom.
Please donate in the link at the top if you have the finances to help out in this cause.
