One of the political issues in Britain at the moment is the allegation that government education policy had led to the the axing of parts of schools’ curriculums, poor governance, homophobia, segregation of the sexes, a bar on sex education, and unsuitable religious speakers at assemblies. This is all about Islamism, mainly in Birmingham, and the small minority of British moslems who hold extreme views, raising unsettling questions about the nature of religious tolerance, the future of faith-based education and the tensions caused by allowing schools greater independence while trying to control what they teach.

The Daily Mail (whose “news” has always to be treated with well-earned scepticism) has accused “plotters” of trying to “indoctrinate children into anti-Western beliefs”. It claims that six-year-olds were encouraged to join in with anti-Christian chants at one school, and there were warnings at assemblies about “white prostitutes” and “hellfire”. At one school the children were taken to Saudi Arabia at the taxpayer’s expense. The reader can imagine the public outcry!

Children should be encouraged to think for themselves and make judgements based on modern learning and science, not on tribal medieval beliefs. There is nothing wrong with teaching comparative religion (Epicurus would no doubt say that you need to understand it in order to rationally reject it, if you wish), but when you only accept class participation from boys, shove little girls to the back of the classroom and make them cover their heads, those responsible should be laughed at – and stopped!