The London borough of Harrow has granted planning permission for the UK's first state-funded Hindu school.
The decision - made on Wednesday - lifts the final barrier to the construction of the school which is expected to open in September of next year.
The £10m new school - the Krishna Avanti Primary School - is being built by the I-Foundation, a leading Hindu charity.
Welcoming the borough's decision on Monday, Nitesh Gor, the I-Foundation director, said: "This is an incredibly exciting moment for the UK's Hindu community. It is the first time the choice of a faith-based education will be extended to Hindus alongside Christians, Muslims, Jews and Sikhs."
The creation of the UK's first Hindu state-school looks set to encourage Muslim groups to increase their pressure on the government to allow the creation of more publicly-funded Islamic schools.
Comments (3)
State funding of church schools occurs because the state wanted to nationalise the school system but the churches wanted the schools to maintain their distinctive religious identity. So a compromise was made.
Earlier on of course the state wanted to co-opt church schools for patriotic purposes by introducing 'army classes' etc. to promote 'citizenship' etc. - imitating the sort of rubbish that was going on on the continent at the time. The churches rejected such moves which led to the state retaliating by creating its own free schools to undercut the financial viablity of church schools culminating in their nationalisation.
Personally I think the nationalisation of education has proved as disasterous as the nationalisation of health, welfare and large swathes of industry.
I can't see why the new religions want to become part of the straight-jacket de-intellectualising state system.
Posted by william | September 17, 2007 2:24 PM
Posted on September 17, 2007 14:24
This event should be welcomed, as should the increase of religous schools generally. I know as a Catholic, that the communites supporting these schools have to contribute 10-15% of the upkeep. This saves the taxpayer billions. Also, schools in the State sector are scrutinised by inspectors and have to conform to the National cirriculum. This is integration par excellence.
Posted by James Stubbs, Coventry, U.K. | September 15, 2007 9:08 AM
Posted on September 15, 2007 09:08
I've always been opposed to the idea of religious institutions beeing funded by the state; It'll be interesting to see whether we will hear an expose about descrimination on grounds of caste, funded by the taxpayer, come before an English court at some point in the future...
http://www.irr.org.uk/2006/july/ha000013.html
Posted by BristolAndy | September 14, 2007 8:46 PM
Posted on September 14, 2007 20:46