Faith school education is no better than others

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Faith primary schools: No better than state, according to a report

Faith primary schools make little difference to children's future prospects, government-funded research shows.

Many Anglican and Catholic primaries are heavily over-subscribed because parents believe they get better results and have a stronger "ethos" of hard work.

Tony Blair, a devout Christian, has thrown his weight behind the expansion of state-funded faith schools.

But today, a report commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills from the London School of Economics warned that sending a child to a faith primary will give them only a "very small advantage" over a pupil at the secular school down the road.

Attending a faith primary school will add just 0.0042 per cent to their pay as an adult - equivalent to an extra £1.25 a year on the average London salary of £29,744, said LSE academics Dr Stephen Gibbons and Olmo Silva.

Dr Gibbons said his findings threw into doubt the wisdom of the Government's support for more faith schools. "There's no clear evidence for the Government's policy to be geared towards expanding faith schools," he added.

Results achieved by children in national tests taken at age 11 were only one per cent better in the case of faith school pupils, he said.

The findings came from analysis of information on exam results and the social and economic characteristics of millions of children collected since 2002 by the Government's National Pupil Database.

A DfES spokesman insisted the Government did not plan to force through the building of more state schools.

He said: "What matters is that all children reach their full potential in whatever type of school they attend and this year's results for 11-year-olds show that a record proportion of young people are hitting the required level in maths, English and science."

 

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