Tory bid to select pupils by race

bbc

Some schools would be able to select pupils by race in order to improve community relations under plans being considered by the Conservative Party.
Shadow education secretary David Willetts said city academies could use racial selection to unite communities divided by race or religion.

Government figures in the Observer show some schools in England have a pupil majority from one ethnic group.

Ministers say there are plans to tackle this through fostering community links.

what kind of idea is this?
if a child is white/black or asian and wants to go to a school that has the majority of their race in that school does this mean the school can tell them we cant accept you because we need to balance out the school?

dont see how this is going to help improve things apart from piss off parents who cant get their kids into the schools they want.

its called the joys of watching a right wing party come out with strange views

personally, i feel it borders on racism. yes, i know it wants to bring about equal opportunities but surely it has the potential to be racist?

(and i've just added you on myspace)

[edit on 28-5-2007 by infinite]

It actually makes sense, if you think about it. There ARE schools that are predominately of one race. There is a primary school literally 5 mins from my house that my daughter WILL NOT be going to, unless they address the glaring racial imbalance there. It's not as if the school population even reflects the local community, just for some reason it is 95% Muslim/Asian. All sporting their little hijabs and what not.

I want my daughter to go to a nice, balanced school where she can interact with everyone, not a school that is so far in favour of one racial group it will skew the kids outlook on life in the future. So i am shipping her off to the other side of town to go to a school that is actually in a completely different local authority area.

It is insanity. Positive discrimination does not work and goes completely against the meritocratic ideals this country is supposed to support. Allowing schools to choose will not solve the problem either, the fact that certain schools are populated predominantly by one race reflects upon the area they are in. Maybe policies should be brought in to alleviate the problems of segregation in some communities e.g. the issue of 'White Flight' in certain towns for example Blackburn (Panorama special on the place several weeks ago.)

Originally posted by Eddie999
It is insanity. Positive discrimination does not work and goes completely against the meritocratic ideals this country is supposed to support.

And I like to point out...
it's also against the law too.

Originally posted by infinite
And I like to point out...
it's also against the law too.

Yes, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK, but positive action is not. This can be seen in the quotas that police have; that the make-up of a particular police force must be an accurate representation of the area it is policing, often requiring it to hire more women and members of ethnic minorities.

Also it can be seen by attempts to increase the numbers of female and ethnic minority MPs, not because they are best suited to the job, but because of their gneder/race and in the interests of 'equality'...

Originally posted by Eddie999
It is insanity. Positive discrimination does not work and goes completely against the meritocratic ideals this country is supposed to support. Allowing schools to choose will not solve the problem either, the fact that certain schools are populated predominantly by one race reflects upon the area they are in.
Maybe policies should be brought in to alleviate the problems of segregation in some communities e.g. the issue of 'White Flight' in certain towns for example Blackburn (Panorama special on the place several weeks ago.)

As I said above, it isn't always that the schools do represent their constituent populations, but rather, parents choose schools because of a certain racial grouping.

The Oxford Road Primary (the one I mentioned above) is actually in a very mixed area where Asian Muslims are the minority, yet the school itself is nearly 100% Muslim. The area actually has a higher proportion of White British, Africans, West Indians and eastern Europeans than it does Asians.

In my view (and I am 100% AGAINST positive discrimination), this is not what it is. It is merely trying to mix up the racial make up of certain schools so you don't get the racial divide being ingrained into the kids at a young age.

Originally posted by stumason

In my view (and I am 100% AGAINST positive discrimination), this is not what it is. It is merely trying to mix up the racial make up of certain schools so you don't get the racial divide being ingrained into the kids at a young age.

In theory, and in theory only, this is a good idea. However, in reality problems arise, for example the family has a more influencial role in socialising a young person, and if the idea of there being a racial divide in a town exists within the family it will be passed on to the next generation.

Furthermore, can schools really be trusted with the role of creating social cohesion and integration? They're pretty useless at most other things (although that is the subject of another post...)

This is a good idea, schools like the work place should represent our communties and should not be allowed to have just Muslims, Christians, Jews etc. in a particular school.

This does nothing to bring communities together but insures continuing division. Just as I dont agree with Uk residents who move to France or Spain and say they want their children to go to an English school, why, the whole purpose of moving to another country is to intergrate into the community, if you dont want to then stay where you are.

You will never have peace and understanding if you continue to build walls between communties.

I think you’ve both got valid points. I’m against the parent selecting a school because of its race. This is where alien worlds of like 100% Muslim arise from areas where Muslims are normally a well integrated minority. These sorts of schools have been shown to breed extremism-division, I think it’s always been clear that’s what they do, and therefore they should be stopped.

Doing this means the school has to turn away certain parents and invite a proportion of other groups in.

On the other hand I'm against the school choosing the kid because of they’re race at the expense of brighter-more suitable students, that’s what you call “positive discrimination” (Liberal Left Hitler Ideology in my view).
However if a school racially selects kids without compromising “academic interrogatory” then I'm ok with the plan. Basically it’s because the only way it’s got any point is to deny the xenophobicism of the parents expressing itself in it’s own image.

That said: Why can’t we have near pure Christian schools in a Christian country? Isn’t that traditional? I thought half the idea behind having ethnic minorities coming here is what we have our way of life (centuries old) and they have theirs which over time becomes like ours. I can understand English people being concerned about community splits, but can’t well understand English people who want to diminish the cultural diversity of the world starting with ridding the world of the English culture first.

Just when did someone's religion become interchangable with their supposed 'race'.......and when did a school ever have a 'race'......and what the hell is a "pure Christian school" meant to be anyways?


[edit on 20-6-2007 by sminkeypinkey]

Just when did someone's religion become interchangable with their supposed 'race'

. Walk into any school where the majority of pupils come from non-Christian-atheist backgrounds and you’ll also find so to do the majority come non-Causian backgrounds.
When this happened I don’t know, probably after whoever set up the first foreign religion school.

All I meant by “near pure Christian” is that I don’t want these schools being forced to take 25% Muslims if they’re in a 25% Muslim area. But if a Muslim school is in a 25% Christian area then I want it to be 25% Christian as opposed to like near 100 Muslim. It’s double standards for the sole purpose of persevering our own culture why integrating the many different foreign ones into ours. And don’t let anyone say that’s indoctrination. For starters I bet the 25% minority atheists-Christians will be more swayed by Muslim beliefs than the 75% Muslim would be swayed by Christian-atheist. It’s the mix that counts.