This Month's Contents

Conference 2009

Towards a New Agenda for
Lifelong Learning: Access,
Diversity and Participation

1st -3rd July, Staffordshire University

Full conference details are now available on the FACE CONFERENCE 2009 web page.

Registration can only be made online

ONLINE REGISTRATION FOR FACE 2009

Papers and workshop presentations are sought on any or all of the conference themes. Papers and workshops should address the over-arching theme of a new agenda for lifelong learning.

ONLINE ABSTRACT SUBMISSION FORM

Go to

Full programme details

Call for Papers

Conference Themes

Keynote Speakers

Early Bird Bookings

All bookings made prior to the 28th February 2009 will receive a free copy of 'Marginality and Difference in Education and Beyond' edited by Michael Reiss, Renee Depalma & Elizabeth Atkinson published by Trentham books at £18.99

Conference Organisor, Peter Jones Telephone: 01782 294941 Email: pete.jones@staffs.ac.uk

The academic year here corresponds with the US August to May schedule. For full detailed information go to job openings on the college website.

Best regards,

Ted Stepp

Instructor of English, College of the Marshall Islands

Email: tstepp@cmi.edu

Where are the Marshall Islands?

As a member-oriented organisation FACE would like to invite individual colleagues to have their say on any issue of concern in UK education policy and practice. This is a purely personal point of view and should not be thought to represent any institution, organisation, or official body. To have your say, email James.Tate@uwe.ac.uk

This month's contribution is from Steve Lake who comments upon the issue of Faith Schools.

Respect All Faiths And None.

I struggle with the fact that my daughter is forced to attend religious assemblies or be excluded from her peer group. I have argued with largely sympathetic members of the local authority about this to no avail. The continued requirement for religious observance is bad enough, but I was appalled recently by the railroading of a decision to award two new schools in my area to a religious group rather than an open and accountable partnership of universities, colleges and local businesses.

What is this obsession with ‘faith’ in schools? The arguments seem to stem from two premises: i. that faith schools (somehow) get better results and ii. that codes of conduct are stronger because they are faith based. Both arguments appear to be nothing more than unfounded assertions; faith not fact.

Do faith schools get better results? Dr Sandie Schagen, Principal Research Officer at the National Foundation for Educational Research told the Parliamentary Education and Skills Select Committee in 2003: “Our finding is that basically, when you apply value-added analysis […] the difference is based on intake.” In other words, the same socio-economic factors that apply elsewhere.

Similarly, there is no real evidence to suggest that student behaviour is improved in faith schools. Arguments for faith schools have also been put forward on grounds of parental choice. Yet this seems to be predicated on a crude notion of demand that still favours majorities over minorities, exclusion over inclusion.

The hierarchy of schools based on performance (heavily based on parental income in state as well as independent sectors) is set to continue and for many, the false equation: faith school = ‘better behaviour, higher standards, greater achievement’ is unquestionable. The subsequent distorting effects on local provision are as well known as the excruciating circus of the irreligious attending church to aid their application.

All parents should have the right to bring up their children in the belief system of their choice (hopefully providing the child with the right to freely decide as they mature). This should be an inalienable right for ALL parents and as such publicly funded schooling should not seek to provide this. Yet, this government persists in satisfying what is at best a limited demand to the exclusion of religious and non-religious minorities, individuals as well as groups.

With the seemingly inevitable decline of the secular comprehensive ideal, where can one really go to in the publicly funded education sector to ensure a good school that has an inclusive ethos, respecting those of ‘all faiths and none’? As a committed humanist I find myself in a minority, without a large multi-national organisation (church) to lobby for me or a local community of fellow (non)-believers to look to for solidarity.  And my choices are dwindling as every year passes.

Dr Steve Lake,
Southampton Solent University
stephen.lake@solent.ac.uk