Well said Ms D, manchester. All faith schools are divisive and the government should not fund them. The Government should ONLY fund Secular education.

   Well I think his name says it all, you just need to add UP on the end and it will be like everything else this government have done.

   I would rather my child went to one of these usually better performing faith schools than a politically controlled state school. This socialist centrally controlling nanny state bureaucratic politically correct culture is ruining our state schools.

   A proper "ed the ball" as Mike Harding used to say!

   Let's just stop a minute and look at what is being said. On one hand we are being told to be more tolerant and to integrate with the minorities, Now we are being told about government funding to segregate the minorities, what the hell is going on? This is more proof that this government has lost it's way, and as for Ed Balls well enough said.

   New Labour's policies on this matter are awful.We have become an increasingly secular society,for at least the past hundred years,so this encouraging of faith schools is out of step with our society.Faith is for the home,not the school.There are people involved in faith schools,who want to teach creationism,rather than the scientifically proven theory of evolution..if we are not careful,we will end up like America..where schools have used their power to indoctrinate kids with ideas,taken literally, from The Bible (which is metaphorical,except in the hands of idiotic extremists). Also our society already has an element of mistrust between some religious and ethnic groups,particularly post 9/11 and Iraq.Faith schools merely widen those divisions.Northern Ireland was never helped by it's separate schooling for Protestants and catholics,many people grew up not having mixed with people from the other community,and developed dehumaising stereotypes as a result.We want our schools to be a healthy mix of kids,with respect for each others differences.Not a world of religious and cultural indoctrination.While we are talking about integration,isn't it long overdue,that private schools are abolished,they merely create an elite,of privileged but mediocre adults,insulated from the world of the vast majority.If we want to be a harmonious,fair society,based on equality of opportunity,then this Government of Thatcher's children is following policies,that will lead to the opposite of that.

   Ontario conservatives just lost an election based on faith based schools. The people said they wanted secular schooling for their children and this included the large muslim vote. We do have publicly funded Catholic schools, a left over from a previous conservative government. We have muslim private schools along with other private religious schools. How can children integrate when they are separated by their schooling? Religion belongs in the home and the church/mosque/synagogue etc. What will you do with your half empty secular schools and where will the other half go to have their education when you close them down due to "not enough" students? High school muslim children here are allowed to sign out of school on a Friday afternoon to go to the mosque for prayers and just that. Their school work is arranged around this need.

   When kids are separated by religion in different schools, this only caused division. Religion has no place in schools and there should be no state funded faith schools at all. I wish this goverment would stop trying to pander to minorities and work towards stopping these divisions.