Teaching and preaching

TWO events this week have reminded me once again just how misguided politicians of all persuasions are in allowing an accelerating number of our schools to be motivated and controlled by religious dogma.

Your correspondent Jan Pietruszka (EA Jan 25th), whilst extreme, rambling and lacking evidence, did perhaps take a sideswipe over the lack of integration which has concerned me now for many years. Possibly the Times article on Sunday painted an even more graphic picture ‘Islamic school bans boy/girl interaction.’ This is Al-khair School in Croydon whose Islamic ethos forbids all forms of communication between boys and girls. Free mixing is a high level offence that can lead to exclusion, alongside drug dealing, theft, extortion and arson.

Ofsted seem to think this is OK.

Surely gender segregation has no part whatsoever to play in our schools?

But beyond this, does religion have a place if we are engineering a kind of cultural apartheid? The present schools’ policy subsidises and encourages separate religious development of our young people. Put simply, the argument against faith-based schools can be summed up in two words – Northern Ireland.

If we want our grandchildren to be part of a balanced, integrated and harmonious future society, properly respecting gender difference and minorities is this really the right way of going about it? Surely schools should be places where children encounter ideas they may never come across in the home or elsewhere, so the fact that faith schools are allowed to give narrow religious instruction can only be bad for future society.

It straddles a very thin line between teaching and preaching.

How can it be sensible to actively encourage environments where young people are taught an uncritical acceptance of one world view?

If a school were to be academically honest in what it teaches its students, there would be no discernible different between a secular school and a “faith-based” school because teaching religion as absolute truth cannot be academically honest.

It in turn reinforces separateness and denies integration. My second daughter is very happily married to a Hindu and my third daughter will marry a Muslim in June this year, something I am looking forward to greatly.

The reason is that neither of these fine young men were brought up with wall to wall religious dogma, but were allowed to grow up in secular schools with access to a range of perspectives.

I am aware Christians slaughtered Muslims in the Middle Ages and the Nazis slaughtered Jews in Germany.

I’ve seen Jews slaughter Muslims in Palestine, Christians slaughter Muslims in Srebrenica, Protestants and Catholics bomb and murder each other in Northern Ireland and today one brand of Muslim will slaughter another brand of Muslim throughout the Middle East with a fearful enthusiasm.

And what do we do in this country? We set up our school system with subservience to political correctness and subsidy on top, entrenching ethno- religious division from a child’s earliest formative years.

If this planet is to survive another 250 years, then an agenda of integration will be the only hope. Carry on down this present path tolerating, even encouraging tribal, socio economic, ethnic, religious and racial division and we may yet prove old Enoch right!

JOHN STOOKE Haydon End, Swindon

Remedy is needed

I HAVE never written to your paper before but feel so strongly I just had to pen to paper.

On Friday afternoon my father was admitted to GWH by ambulance.

The doctor rang and ordered it from my father’s home, in Marlborough, and requested it urgently telling me if it wasn’t there within the hour to chase it up. After an hour and 10 minutes I did so.

The operator went through a lot of questions when I rang,which the doctor had already told them in his conversation.

I just emphasised that he was deteriorating (which she wouldn’t accept.) I then had a stream of excuses as to why the ambulance hadn’t arrived but 35 minutes later it turned up and the two crew were fantastic.

Father was taken off to hospital at 4.30pm.

I got to the hospital at 7-ish that evening and I could not believe how busy it was.

There where beds in A & E in the corridors side by side and a queue of people in wheelchairs with the ambulance staff This was all happening after they had gone through the front desk.

My point is that, although the staff at A&E and the ambulance crew did a marvellous job with my father before and during admitting him, our hospital isn’t big enough to handle the people we have How can Swindon be allowed to expand at such a rate when our hospital is obviously stretched to its limits and our roads are at a standstill most mornings and evenings?

Oh, and there’s the talk of selling off Lydiard Park, so decimating leisure space - because we all know that is the inevitable outcome.

Where do the people who make these incredible decisions for our town live and work?

Get in touch with the real world please before we lose lives and the town grinds to a halt with the people of Swindon having one less place to take a pleasant stroll so as to stay healthy.

I must apologise to the lady at the ambulance call centre who I may have been a little stern with, but she was taking the flak for what I can see as a worsening problem from our visit to Swindon’s Great Western Hospital.

GARY WILKINSON via email

Calling all councillors

IT IS nice to see some small degree of common sense has at last been found by Swindon Council.

We now have a three-month gap during which a solution to “What happens to Lydiard Park can be found.”

It really is very simple.

My research has shown that within a distance of probably no more than about 80 miles from Swindon there are several estates similar to Lydiard Park being operated on a very commercial basis for the benefit of the general public.

The simplest solution to me would seem to be to talk to the owners of these houses, find out what works and simply reproduce the good and profitable parts at Lydiard.

On the subject of doing what’s best for Swindon, can I suggest councillors make a little trip up the M4 to Camberley. They recycle 85per cent of their rubbish in two wheelie bins – one for rubbish and the other for recycling.

Result – a contribution of £1m to the local funds to help keep the council tax down and the children’s centres open.

So please can we have a comment from our councillors?

ALAN BUNN Overbrook Eldene Swindon

Diabetes’ menus

THERE has been a lot of publicity in the newspapers and TV about getting back in shape after Christmas – eating more healthily and taking more exercise.

Many of your readers will have diabetes so this is particularly important for them.

They have to manage their medications, diet and exercise all the time to stay well.

We know that this can be difficult, especially in chilly winter weather when salads seem less appetising and we feel we need something more substantial.

Our booklet, Diabetes – Everyday Eating will help people to get back on track with their meals and provides inexpensive menus for breakfast, lunch and evening meals, many with winter in mind. There are 28 days of menus which help people to know what they can eat, rather than what they can’t.

We are happy to send your readers a copy of Diabetes – Everyday Eating, and other booklets about diabetes, free of charge.

They just need to contact us on 01604 622837, e-mail jenny@iddtinternational.org or write to IDDT, PO Box 294, Northampton NN1 4XS JENNY HIRST Co-chairman InDependent Diabetes Trust PO Box 294 Northampton, NN1 4XS

Pupil funding stats

BARRIE Hudson, while not being one to moan, did ask an interesting question concerning school pupil funding.

He wondered where Swindon pupils stood in relation to other areas.

A Department For Education document labelled Fairer Schools Funding, published in July 2014 gives a figure of £4,102 a pupil in 2014.

This is well towards the bottom of this list, eight authorities received less, all others received more. From 2015 this figure is £4,251 a child and nine authorities receive less, all the others more. Additional payments are made in respect of certain educational needs which will vary across the country.

Barrie Hudson’s suspicion that Swindon kids do not get a “fair go” would seem to be supported by the Government’s own figures.

GUY GREEN Old Town, Swindon

Taxing times

GOOGLE is now paying a voluntary contribution of corporation tax to Britain after not paying any tax here for ten years.

The offer of £130m is a tiny proportion of the tax the internet giant might have been expected to pay on income of more than £6bn.

It seems that within the EU companies can choose where they pay corporation tax. Many of the biggest companies operating in Britain choose not to pay any of their taxes here in Britain.

Britain is failing to collect on about a £100bn pounds worth of corporation tax every year because of these tax avoidance schemes. It is only by leaving the EU that Britain can force these giant multi-nationals to pay their correct share of taxes to the British Treasury.

STEVE HALDEN Beaufort Green Swindon