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The education secretary has denied caving in after he scrapped plans to force new faith schools in England to raise intakes from other religions. Under the plans, such schools would have had to give up to 25 per cent of their places to those from outside the faith. Alan Johnson says a change is no longer needed after a "voluntary agreement" was reached with the Catholic Church as well as the Church of England. Opposition parties say it is a U-turn and admission policies will not change. They say there is no guarantee that pupils of other faiths will get places. Leaders of the Catholic Church had expressed deep misgivings over the proposals, which were introduced in an amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill last week. The Catholic Church has now voluntarily joined the Church of England to agree that up to 25% of places should go to pupils from another faith or none, the education secretary said. Mr Johnson said the change of direction had nothing to do with opposition from religious groups. The abandonment of the plans followed talks with representatives of all the UK's major religious groups. There had been a "consensus amongst all faith groups" that "every school whether faith or non-faith should have a duty to promote community cohesion," said Mr Johnson. "We've made enough progress through the voluntary route that we don't need the blunt instrument of legislation," he said. Ofsted would inspect all schools on the community cohesion element, Mr Johnson said. He added that some Muslim schools had said they wanted between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of pupils to be from outside of the faith, but very few people wanted to take them up. The Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, welcomed the new "broad agreement", as did Canon John Hall, the Church of England's chief education officer. 'Dog's dinner' Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb welcomed the development, saying the Conservatives had always believed the faith school issue had been one "for schools themselves to decide". He said: "You should encourage schools to engage on the basis of social responsibility by opening up places, by involving themselves in the community. "But not by passing draconian laws forcing schools to adopt a quota of pupils from non-faiths or from other faiths." Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Sarah Teather labelled the affair a "dog's dinner", saying ministers did not seem to know what the problem was that they were trying to solve. "The government first of all announce there were going to be quotas and then they found out that in fact there was a huge backlash to that and they had to row back from it." The National Secular Society argued that the latest development would not make any difference. "The people who ought to be having a duty to promote community cohesion is the government itself and it's failing miserably," said the society's Keith Porteous-Wood. Although the voluntary agreement does not affect Muslim schools, the Muslim Council of Britain welcomed the move. The council's education spokesman, Tahir Allam, said he had argued against legislation, adding that the compromise was "a good position to be in".
More information
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The Guardian: UK - Catholics and Jews attack controls on faith school intakes as veils row goes on (17 October 2006)
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BBC: United Kingdom: Church schools in 'inclusive' vow (3 October 2006)
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Religions for Peace: Faith in Action - Working towards the Millennium Development Goals (September 2006)
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The Independent: UK - Faith Schools Are 'At Odds with Reason', Says Chaplain (April 2006)