Faith schools will drive a wedge between us

I'm not religious, although I've had moving experiences while visiting churches, mosques and temples. I even pray sometimes. But faith schools, I believe, have no place in 21st-century Britain.

A child has the basic right to develop a mind of its own. Schools should cultivate children's ability to reason and engage with the world in a rational and inquisitive manner, unencumbered by unsubstantiated dogma. I'm no atheist, but it's obvious to me that one's belief in God is a purely speculative intuition, and should not be the organising principle for an institution of learning.

Zealots insist that religious schools instil values and restraint that our permissive society is losing. They impart only ignorance. My sister is a youth worker and recently gave a drugs awareness class at a Catholic school. She handed the pupils information leaflets only to see the headmaster snatch them back. He considered the leaflets - about drug effects and counselling - to be "inappropriate" for his pupils. Those kids will all come into contact with drugs, and many will use them; but the school's "ethos" denied them information that could possibly save their lives.

Similarly, my friend taught at a girls school with a majority Christian and Muslim intake. Parental opposition stopped the school teaching sex education in any depth; subsequently the girls were kept profoundly naïve about the subject. This innocence didn't protect them. One virginal Muslim pupil ran off with the first boy who asked her out - a crack dealer, who got her hooked before passing her around his friends.

Religious schools boast about their better-behaved pupils who get better grades, but they achieve them because their parents are generally middle-class and committed. The religion is merely incidental.

The Government's latest plans are almost certainly part of its strategy for tackling Islamic fundamentalism. It wants to eliminate extremist teaching in Muslim schools by having them state-funded and under its control. But this will only separate even more Muslim children from mainstream society and foster their sense of difference.

In a democracy, we can't make an exception of one religion and ban its schools alone. But as a modern, rational and enlightened society, we should seriously consider whether religion deserves any place in our school system.

I believe it doesn't.