Sunday, July 23, 2006

Wee Free little maids from school

The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland are wanting to start up some religious schools in the Highlands and Islands. They figure if the catholics and the muslims can have them why shouldn't they?
I should think, given the problems Scotland has with sectarian strife, that we could do with fewer such schools rather than more, especially ones run by, it has to be said, a particularly staunch denomination of the church.
The problem is, their part of Scotland is sparsely populated, with a falling birthrate. The catchment area needs to be geographically large in order to have enough pupils, to make a school economically viable. Are they proposing to open new schools to run in competition with established schools, to give parents a choice; or do they intend to take over the running of the established schools. Children then would be forced to have a calvinist education whether they were Wee Free or not.
Religious studies would, I should think, become a major part of the curriculum. How literally would the bible be taught? And would evolution still be a part of the biology course? Hopefully the Schools Inspectorate would step in as they did with the Vardy Academies.
Even so, imagine the horror of attending such a school, with no escape from the word of God and his all seeing eye, and the threat of hellfire if your homework's late!

1 comment:

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