David Cameron has called for an end to free faith school transport as part of a Government drive to promote integration in schools.
In a landmark speech on Islamic extremism given in Birmingham today the Prime Minister said that the education that young people receive is often more segregated than the neighbourhoods they live in.
“Bussing children to different areas is not the right approach for this country,” he went on.
By law, local education authorities must provide free transport to a child’s nearest school if that school is beyond a walking distance of two or three miles depending on the age of the child. Prior to 2007, almost all county councils provided discretionary free transport to pupils attending a faith school if it was not their nearest school, but an investigation by The Tablet last year found that free transport to and from faith schools has effectively been scrapped in England’s countryside.
Mr Cameron praised faith schools – and acknowledged that he had sent his children to a Church of England state primary in London – and said that he did not think they should be dismantled.
But he said it was right to look at how best to move away from segregated education in divided communities.
He backed a Government policy that requires faith schools to allocate half their places without reference to faith – a policy that the Catholic Education Service has condemned.
He also revealed plans to incentivise schools to diversify, whether by sharing sites and facilities, encouraging integrated teaching or creating new, integrated faith schools in segregated areas.
Elsewhere in the address Mr Cameron announced a five-year strategy to combat Islamic extremism. He said that the Government’s counter-extremism strategy, which will be published in the autumn, would confront “head on” the ideology behind Islamic extremism.
It would also tackle those who promote non-violent extremism. To such organisations, he said: “Unwittingly or not, and in a lot of cases it’s not unwittingly you are providing succour to those who want to commit, or get others to commit to, violence.”
He revealed that parents would be given the power to cancel their children’s passports if they were concerned that they might have left home to join jihadist fighters abroad.
“I know how worried some people are that their children might turn to this ideology – and even seek to travel to Syria or Iraq,” he said.
Elsewhere he criticised universities and internet companies for not doing more to protect users from extremism.
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