News and Opinion

It is entirely at the discretion of Local Education Authorities whether they pay for ‘home to faith school transport’ by providing a special subsidy to help children with parents of certain religions get to a school that inculcates their religion rather than attend their local school. Currently, 40% of all English Local Education Authorities (including Leicestershire) pay for such transport incurring a cost of more than £20M (2008/09) met by the Council Tax payer. Ninety out of one hundred and fifty-two Local Education Authorities (i.e. 60%) do not provide such transport. The subsidy isn’t available for all children from a religious background travelling to ‘faith’ schools, nor to those of no faith, but only to a select few, whose parents follow a privileged religion and have “chosen” to send their children to a school other than their nearest allocated one. The scheme defies logic. How can it be right to provide transport to sectarian ‘faith schools’ but not to other scho...

It is entirely at the discretion of Local Education Authorities whether they pay for ‘home to faith school transport’. That is provide a special subsidy to help children with parents of certain religions get to a school that inculcates their religion rather than attend their local school. Currently, 40% of all English Local Education Authorities (including Leicestershire) pay for such transport. This is at a total cost of £20.5M (2008/09) to the Council Tax payer. Ninety out of one hundred and fifty-two Local Education Authorities (i.e. 60%) do not provide such transport. The subsidy isn’t available for all children from a religious background travelling to ‘faith’ schools, nor to those of no faith, but only to a select few, whose parents follow a privileged religion and have “chosen” to send their children to a school other than their nearest allocated one. The scheme defies logic. How can it be right to provide transport to sectarian ‘faith schools’ but not to other sch...