Religious segregation - Catholic Church threatens schools plan

[richardm]

Is this the right forum for this? It's current events, I guess.

A Council near Glasgow is trying to regenerate primary schools by merging them onto a single campus. They say that this allows them to pool the funds that would otherwise go be diluted, and build a better gym, better classrooms, better nursery facilities, hot baths, laboratories, racing tracks and all the other essentials for Primary education (up to the age of 12).

Several schools are going to be involved in this scheme, and pretty much everyone involved agrees this is the great idea. However, some of the schools involved are Catholic schools, and while they're glad to be involved they have a couple of caveats. They want separate entrances, staff toilets gyms and nurseries at the proposed shared sites.

Frankly, I'm shocked. I can't see why the Church would want to be even remotely associated with a shared campus if they're going to call for segregation like this. Especially in an area like Glasgow, which has a long history of Sectarian problems.

(Story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3427917.stm))

What are they thinking?

[a_unique_person]

I don't believe that bigger schools are actually any better.

[richardm]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
I don't believe that bigger schools are actually any better.

Well, that's fine. But in this instance the Church has accepted that the single campus is the best way to sort the school infrastructure out. But they still want to have their own separate facilities within it. Sort of eating your cake and having it.

[Lothian]

They should pay for the extra costs. Either directly through the church or by way of a reduction in state funding.

Or better still all state funding should be removed from the school until they agree to teach a secular syllabus.

[mummymonkey]

Some of these schools would close anyway due to falling numbers of pupils. It's not as if they're merging into massive conglomerates. The only alternative is to have very large catchment areas.
Separate nurseries for goodness sake. Separate staff toilets? Maybe we should go the whole way and have separate sewage systems. Perhaps we could have separate water fountains. Cuts down the risk of contamination you see.
The tragedy here is that the majority of parents, of all faiths, are in favour of the proposals. It's the reactionary bigots that are doing their utmost to wreck them.
Every morning I pass a group of catholic children waiting to catch their bus to the catholic high school some 18 miles away. The bus picks them up outside the local (non-denominational) high school.
I'm shocked you're shocked Richard.

[richardm]

In a way, I could almost understand wanting separate entrances... keep the school's identity, avoid fights in the entrance... I can at least see an argument for it, dodgy though it be.

But separate gyms? Separate staff toilets? That just makes it sound like Catholics think non-catholics are unclean or something.

Yeah, shocked!