posted on Mar, 6 2008 @ 11:22 AM
Originally posted by budski
Catholic schools and CofE schools have been doing this for years - muslim schools also do it.
Why is it a problem because jewish schools are doing it.
I sense an agenda in the article - no surprise there though, it's from The Guradian, a paper run by a selfstyled left wing liberal elite.
In fairness, I think this has been reported relatively widely in the UK media - the telegraph has covered it too, and that's hardly "a paper run by
a self-styled left wing liberal elite".
I'm not sure that in practice Catholic schools or CofE schools HAVE been doing anything similar for years. Where I grew up there were a number of
catholic schools and a number of CofE schools - and locally throughout my school life there was a debate about the merits of "faith schools" over
the standard mixed-faith secondary education. I don't recall anyone being turned away from a CofE school. I went to one, and was subsequently
confirmed, but that had nothing to do with my school, and I think you'd have to go a long way to find a less religious bunch than my schoolmates...
There were however at least 2 orthodox Jews in my class, and I believe 3 or 4 Muslims (of various levels of orthodoxy). I can't say for sure that my
school was representative of the country as a whole, but I've never heard of the practice that you mention, budski.
The fact is though that we are comparing chalk with cheese here. A brief bit of research shows that there are around 16 Jewish secondary schools in
the whole of the UK (see link
here. There are about 150 CofE schools
in London alone. There are even 127 Muslim schools. It's clear that Jewish schools are far rarer. In those circumstances I can understand, if the
school is orthodox, that it has a selection policy that works on an orthodoc basis. I'm not Jewish and am no expert on the religion, but even I know
that matrilineal descent is important to orthodox judaism. This is a specialised school operating orthodox rules - in an area better served for
secondary schools than 99% of the country. So what if this child didn't get a place? 20% of children DON'T get their first choice school in this
country (see
link here) - if you apply to a specialist
school like this and don't get a place, I'd say you're a little foolish to be surprised....
LW