The Con-Dems are desperate to take Welfare and Employment rights back to Victorian time – now Gove makes explicit his desire to do the same to Education.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/07/church-to-take-over-thousands-of-community-schools#.UdcXCDvp5Jk.twitter

Extract:

The Church of England has struck a deal with the Government that will allow it to take control of thousands of non-religious community schools.

Despite reassurances that the character of community schools will remain intact, with no change in religious education, admissions policies or employment terms for teachers, the National Secular Society has expressed grave doubts that this promise will be kept over the long-term.

Executive Director of the National Secular Society, Keith Porteous Wood, said that the move would inevitably lead to a further religionisation of the school system.

Speaking to The Times newspaper, Mr Porteous Wood said: “This will surreptitiously bring the education system under religious control. It will lead to the further alienation of school children who are from non-religious or religiously unconcerned families. Despite now being the majority, they are becoming increasingly disadvantaged in admissions and by the growing religionisation of publicly-funded schools.”

Mr Wood said: “Once schools have been taken over by religious interests, it will be almost impossible to ever bring them back under community control.”

Bishops will have the power to appoint governors at the schools.

At a seminar in Lambeth Palace, Education Secretary Michael Gove once more sang the praises of Church schools, ignoring the unjust admissions criteria and discriminatory employment practices in appointing teachers.

He said: “We would not have so many great state schools in this country without the Church of England. I know the Church does a wonderful job helping to raise educational standards and in providing a safe and loving environment for hundreds of thousands of children.

“However, there is much more we can do together. I want the Church to recover the spirit which infused its educational mission in Victorian times and support more new schools especially academies and free schools to bring educational excellence to the nation’s poorest children.”

Coming next: workhouses and gallows?