Faith school complaints ban is 'affront to democracy', campaigners say

New rules banning secularist groups from raising objections to faith schools’ admissions policies are an “affront to both democracy and the rule of law”, campaigners have said.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) and the National Secular Society (NSS) claimed that the new policy would allow religiously-selective schools to unfairly discriminate against thousands of children while dissenting voices were silenced.

Under the Government’s proposals, which were unveiled by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan at the weekend, campaign groups will be banned from making “vexatious complaints” against the admissions systems of individual faith schools.

The measure is being taken after the Chief Schools Adjudicator, Dr Elizabeth Passmore, said investigating multiple objections from pressure groups was taking too much time and was a waste of public money. Ms Morgan said barring lobbyists and others from making complaints would “unclog” the system while still allowing local parents and councils to raise concerns about applications procedures.

However, the BHA said that its complaints to the Adjudicator had been sparked by concerns from parents – and had revealed that almost every religiously-selective school in England was failing to comply with the School Admissions Code and unfairly denying access to some children.

“Instead of moving to enforce the law, the Government has responded by planning to make it harder to identify future violations of it,” said the charity’s chief executive Andrew Copson. “This is an affront to both democracy and the rule of law.”


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/faith-school-complaints-ban-is-affront-to-democracy-campaigners-say-a6833531.html