(This is an archived extract from the book Patterns of Power: Edition 2)
As already described (4.4.7.1), education can make an important moral contribution to peaceful pluralism – but education is also a political issue. Public education policy can be careful to be neutral in terms of religion and to foster understanding between ethnic groups. In most countries, though, there are also schools which are supported by a single faith – and it would be an impractical and undesirable curtailment of personal freedom to insist upon the State being the only authority allowed to educate children; it would allow a government more control than many people would accept.
Faith schools tend to encourage the adoption of particular beliefs, so they can be seen as potentially divisive; it is therefore of fundamental importance, in support of peaceful pluralism, that every school should be required to teach a basic level of understanding of other faiths. Public examinations could test such knowledge, regardless of which type of school the pupil attended. Such arrangements already exist in some places; they need, though, to be continually reviewed as each society continues to evolve as a consequence of pluralism.
© PatternsofPower.org, 2014