Tag Archives: Edinburgh

This house would abolish state-funded faith schools

Posted on by under Humanism, secularism

George Heriot’s School in Edinburgh have a school debating society which, from time to time, invites guest speakers to debate a motion. The Scottish Secular Society were asked to put up a speaker to propose the motion, “This house would abolish state-funded faith schools“, and I offered to act as proposer. The speaker for the opposition was Barbara Coupar, from the Scottish Catholic Education Service.

The opposition to the motion was based on arguments of the democratic will of the people; parental choice; faith schools providing diversity; a fear of doctrinaire and monolithic secularism; the gifting to the state of the church’s school assets for the public good etc..

I met some wonderful, articulate, thoughtful and passionate young people who gave the speakers a testing examination before decisively supporting the proposition. To be honest, it was such fun having the conversation with tomorrow’s citizens that I wouldn’t have minded had the vote gone the other way; but I’m so glad it didn’t.

The full text of my opening speech and closing remarks are set out below the fold. I’ve also included links to some source materials. In another post I’ll provide some more data on the scale of provision of denominational school places in Scotland.

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