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TV REVIEW: Faith Schools Menace?More4, Wednesday Nationwide Special,RTÉ1, Monday, Vexed,BBC2, Sunday The Great British Bake Off,BBC1, Tuesday, First Cut: Teen Undertaker,Channel 4, Friday
According to the renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist Prof Richard Dawkins, in his fascinating but ironically preachy Faith Schools Menace?– the question mark must have been the programme makers’; he’s in no doubt – it’s going in the other direction in Britain. Faith schools are on the rise there, with about 7,000 publicly funded schools – one in three – now with religious affiliations. They’re seen as academically stronger, and the clamour for places means that, as Dawkins puts it, “it’s okay to exclude children on the basis of their faith but not on the basis of their race”, and it’s encouraging parents to “fake faith”, either by ostentatious displays of church attendance or even by conversion.
