Gove on Faith Schools

Last week Education Secretary, Michael Gove, wrote a fascinating article in the Catholic Herald on faith schools.  It was remarkable not only for its content, but also for its tone.

The article was extremely sympathetic to faith schools, arguing that it what made Catholic schools distinctive was their Catholicism, and that it was wrong to argue that this is either used as a cloak for selection or a means of religious indoctrination.

Not surprisingly, Gove recommended Catholic Schools become academies, but the headline grabber was the way the Secretary of State described those who wish to change the rules for faith schools.

by becoming an academy, a Catholic school can place can itself permanently out of range of any such unsympathetic meddling and so ensure it can remain true to its Catholic traditions.

There are a number of attractions for this model for faith schools.  At the moment the Catholic Church, as with the Church of England, pays 10% of the capital costs of their schools.  Under the academy model they would no longer have to pay this.  They would also have greater freedom around the curriculum and admissions.

The appeal is well timed, as it comes just days after the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales (CESEW) signalled for the first time that Catholic schools could become academies if they and their bishops wanted to, although it is not clear how many bishops would go for this plan.

Some will no doubt say that Michael Gove is working hard to implement the government's strategy of encouraging more schools to become academies.  However, the tone of the article is much stronger in both its support for faith schools as it is in its criticism of those opponents of faith schools.

What struck Mouse most about the piece is not the call for Catholic Schools to become academies, but the way that Gove slaps down opponents of faith schools.  Under the previous government it sometimes felt as if education policy had been written by the National Secular Society.  Education secretaries, such as Ed Balls barely disguised their belief that faith schools were wrong in principle, and that they indulged in practices such as selection by the back door, and extracting cash for places.

Those days appear gone.  For now.