Have some belief in faith schools

THE debate over the right of Catholics to keep their own schools has been reinvigorated by a splendid idea from the Scottish Tories.

Deputy leader Murdo Fraser, backed by my columnist colleague Brian Monteith, has suggested the Church of Scotland should set up its own state-funded schools, in part because they think such a move will involve more youngsters in the Kirk, and in the long term boost the number of bums on pews.

The old adage of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" springs to mind, as the call comes amid concern that there will soon be more church-going Catholics than Protestants.

But inevitably this has stirred up something of a hornet's nest, particularly among the antis, who have been campaigning for years to bring an end to Catholic education. The critics are, as usual, spouting a load of old waffle.

The most nonsensical argument is cost. It is a myth that Catholic schools cost the taxpayer an extra half-penny and the introduction of state Kirk schools would do nothing to change that.

The only way in which a faith school could be a burden on the taxpayer is if it was half full. Put simply, if a school can accommodate 800 pupils and it has 800 on the roll, whether these children are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or a mixture of all makes absolutely no difference to the cost. All have to be educated. There are no "extra" schools.

Catholic schools are almost always full to bursting. Which brings us to the next myth – that faith schools somehow perpetuate bigotry and division.

There is nowhere more cosmopolitan than a Catholic primary school. Catholicism is a global religion, so the children are white, black, Chinese, you name it. Added to that, every school has a varying percentage of non-Catholics.

Muslim families especially favour Catholic schools because they want their children to be educated in a place where faith and morals – even if not precisely their own – have high priority. Of course, there is always a percentage (and a queue) of nominally Protestant, if not card-carrying, Kirk-going families because Catholic schools tend to perform very well.

The fact is that the rest of the state system threw the baby out with the bathwater many years ago – a trend that was formalised when the previous Executive abandoned the legal requirement on schools to conduct religious observance of "a broadly Christian nature".

Presumably the idea was to be all-embracing and politically correct. The effect was to turn faith into an academic lesson where pupils studied religions of the world as practised by other people, but spent no time at all acquiring their own.

Some would argue that the absence of faith, codes and formally-taught morality has a lot to answer for.

Needless to say, the Catholic Church supports the idea of Kirk schools too, with its spokesman, Peter Kearney, saying: "Scottish parents should have a right to a faith-based education for their children within the state sector."

The only weak point in the Tories' suggestion is their belief that Kirk schools would automatically swell the congregations of the future. Alas, if only it was as easy as that in today's secular world.

Catholic children are not Martians or programmed robots, and they are not conditioned or brainwashed by mad priests and nuns, as some extremists believe. At one time, perhaps. Now, like all other youngsters, they tend to drift away from church-going for some parts of their lives.

But they know – because they have been taught – the Church is there when they feel the need to return. Protestant children deserve no less.

Foreign fallacy
YOU have to admire council leader Jenny Dawe's optimism. On hearing that the city has spent £2 million in two years on extra services for immigrants, she insisted the benefits of the foreign influx outweighed any costs.

Presumably she knows better than the House of Lords and young people in Edinburgh looking for jobs or training – either of whom would tell her that she is wrong. The "hard work ethic" has been exposed as "willing to accept low pay and long hours".

The "high skills" simply remove the need for employers to train our own young.

No-one can blame the immigrants – they are simply making the most of their opportunities and, unlike Jenny Dawe, are under no obligation to care about indigenous Scottish children and workers.

Give me a break
PHILIP Riddle, chief executive of VisitScotland, thinks the credit crunch will do wonders for our tourism, with more people holidaying at home. I think not.

Scottish food prices are the highest in the UK. The National Farmers Union of Scotland says that because of the crunch we are now exporting so much beef, Scots will have less on their plates. Fuel charges in Scotland are crippling, and having just spent a week in the Highlands, I can testify that neither the attitude nor pricing is conducive to a return.