Wow, these e-petitions really work. The e-petition against faith schools has made the government think again about giving taxpayers’ money to churches to indoctrinate children.

Wrong. That was just a dream………

However, the government’s response shows that the UK government is becoming so expert in its capacity to push out condescending piffle in response to these “consultation exercises” as to be able to do it in its sleep. Nevertheless, it took them from 15 November to 14th February to send this “tough love” Valentine’s Day response.

There were 19,106 signatures on the e-petition. That sounds like a lot to me but then, the UK government had no trouble dismissing the road-pricing and anti-ID petitions, with “over a million against road pricing and around 800,00 against ID” in the same patronising way.

There must be a template in the petitions office.

First, a simple statement that they intend to pay NO attention to the petition. In this case:

The Government remains committed to a diverse range of schools for parents to choose from, including schools with a religious character or “faith schools” as they are commonly known.

Next, a few statements designed to make it seem that anyone who signed must have no idea of the issues, so they will “explain” them. This part must involve misinterpreting the petition topic in some major detail.

In this case, they talk about religious education and their commitment to it.

Religious Education (RE) in all schools, including faith schools, is aimed at developing pupils’ knowledge, understanding and awareness of the major religions represented in the country…….

They say that all the faiths have signed up to some agreed standard for teaching RE. Well, duh, I thought the National Curriculum constrained what teachers could teach in ALL subjects, (despite its often seeming like a chokehold on innovative teaching that matches children’s interests.) Is there an argument about the content of their RE lessons? The petition doesn’t say (although it definitely could have) that different faith schools are teaching different forms of RE. It says – stop faith schools from teaching their own dogma in lessons.

This bit is a mite disturbing. There is NOTHING in the petition about not teaching RE as a subject (desirable as that may indeed be, as a goal.) There is no suggestion of not teaching children about the nature of the beliefs of followers of deity x and prophet y. The actual wording was:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools.

Until I read the government’s response, I didn’t understand that creationism or the tenets of particular religions COULD be taught in schools, as if they were standard school subjects.

There is nothing about creationism at all in this response. Can creationists assume that they can teach intelligent design at will, then?

They then completely misunderstand the whole argument about separate education leading to dividing the population in faith ghettoes.

Faith schools have an excellent record in providing high-quality education and serving disadvantaged communities and are some of the most ethnically and socially diverse in the country.

What? So Catholic schools have more children of Protestants than other schools? Church of England schools have more children of atheists than state schools. Muslim schools are dominated by Catholics? Even if this were true (when it is blatant nonsense) it doesn’t address the whole issue of social integration. “Serving disadvantaged communities” (code for ethnic minorities and the poor) “ethnically and socially diverse” (code for the same thing)

Final point in the new artform, finish off with a really irritating sentence.

Many parents who are not members of a particular faith value the structured environment provided by schools with a religious character.

Well duh. Those religious schools that are seen as providing a better education than standard state schools attract many non-believers who can’t or won’t to pay for the private school alternative but are prepared to fake religion to get their kids in one. It is odd that the more numerous Blessed St Invention’s School for Scumbags aren’t besieged by parents seeking the benefits of indoctrinating their kids, if it’s the desire to get their kids taught in a religious structure that inspires parents.

Disappointingly, the excitement of getting patronised by the PM in an email directed straight to your personal inbox seems to have been missed out this time. The website dismissal is all there is.