The Church of England has warned of the potential for divisiveness in the drive for ‘British values’ in schools in that country.
In an essay penned by the church’s chief education officer, Nigel Genders, in response to Ministry of Education guidelines on imparting ‘British values’ to pupils, the church expresses concern that the move contains the danger of shifting towards testing if people are “safe” and “loyal” based on a narrow defintion of Britain’s values.
“’British values’ cannot be allowed to become a test or an assessment of whether somebody in a community is ‘safe’ or ‘loyal’,” the church argues, citing the use of inspectors to check if schools are promoting equality and diversity.
The Ministry of Education guidelines were drawn up in September in the wake of the Birmingham ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal which saw fundamentalist Muslims attempt to infiltrate schools in that city. Designed to counter such infiltration, the guidelines require schools to impart such values as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance. According to a Ministry for Justice spokesperson: “We believe that all young people should develop an appreciation for these values as this will help them to contribute to and succeed in modern Britain.”
However, the Church of England, which schools some one million children in England, questions whether the use of the guidelines is itself a “negative and divisive approach” and one undermining democratic freedoms, not least in the realm of religious freedom.
The Church’s warning comes as it emreged that at least one Christian school has already been deemed by by Ofsted, Britain’s Office for Standards in Education, to have failed the ‘British values’ test. The judgement was based, in part, on the school’s failure to invite representatives of other faiths to lead school assembly and to teach about sexuality based on provisions of the Equality Act.