Cameron backs faith schools

Monday, 8 August 2005 12:00 AM

Shadow education secretary David Cameron has expressed his support for faith schools in Britain, saying there is nothing to suggest they prevent community integration.

The debate about faith schools, and particularly Muslim schools, has intensified in the wake of the London bombings and news that the July 7th terrorists were British-born Muslims.

Critics argue they do little to help community relations, serving only to separate children from their peers of other religions.

But Tony Blair has defended the idea - his children have attended Catholic schools - while Home Office minister Hazel Blears has spoken of her fondness for her own childhood at a Church of England primary in Salford.

And this weekend Mr Cameron reasserted his support for faith schools, saying one of the advantages of having them within the state sector is that they are subject to regulation and have to follow the national curriculum.

"I think the church schools that exist are popular with parents, they get very good results, and they have managed to develop a cultural ethos that actually encourages respect for authority and respect for learning," he told BBC Radio 4's The Westminster Hour.

He stressed: "You can't have one sort of faith school, but deny other faith schools. So I am not against Muslim schools."

Mr Cameron said as long as faith schools were subject to the national curriculum and Ofsted inspections then they are unlikely to foster the kind of separateness from mainstream British society that critics fear.

"I don't think that church schools necessarily breed people that are separate from the rest of society. I'd say quite the opposite."

But he added: "I think that there is a dual responsibility here. We have to do more to define what we mean by imbuing a sense of Britishness, and at the same time I think any faith wanting to set up a school has got to be careful that that school is not encouraging separateness as it were.

"I don't think church schools do, and I don't think Muslim schools would need to either."

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