Sunday schools may have to be registered with the Government and could be inspected by Ofsted under new Government proposals which have the backing of the bishops’ education body.
The Evangelical Alliance urged Christians “to speak out against new proposals that could limit the Church’s ability to teach children traditional biblical principles and absolute claims of Christ”.
The Government’s consultation document, entitled “Out-of-school education settings: call for evidence”, outlines proposals “requiring certain out-of-school education settings to register and be subject to risk-based inspections”. This would apply to any out-of-school organisations including supplementary schools and tuition centres.
The Evangelical Alliance said the move risked the “wholesale nationalisation of youth work and the indirect state regulation of private religious practice”.
Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: “It’s a very serious business, and regulating the activities and teachings of churches – that’s the kind of thing they do in China. I did not think it was the kind of thing the United Kingdom Government would ever try to do.”
But a spokeswoman for the Catholic Education Service said: “It is reasonable to expect any group which has responsibility for children in their care for substantial periods of time to be subject to reasonable regulation to protect children’s health, safety and welfare.
“Church organisations already have well established safeguarding requirements in place and are unlikely to be providing education for over six to eight hours a week on a regular basis.”
The document specifically says: “Given the focus on ‘intensive’ education, any settings providing ad hoc classes, or regular classes below a specified time threshold… would not be captured by this proposal.”
The proposals are believed to be linked to the Government’s counter-extremism strategy, in response to a small number of Muslim groups which teach extremist views. One of the areas that the Ofsted inspectors would be looking out for is “Undesirable teaching, for example teaching which undermines or is incompatible with fundamental British values, or which promotes extremist views.”
Scientist: gene editing would put Britain on wrong path
An eminent scientist has said that plans in Britain to genetically modify human embryos are “unethical” and “unscientific”.
Dr James Sherley, one of the world’s leading adult stem-cell scientists, warned that proposals by Britain’s embryology regulator would have long-term consequences which could lead to designer babies.
He said: “It is a lot harder to stop a train once it is speeding down the tracks. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) should consider the longer-term consequences of approval of human embryo gene-editing research. Gene-edited babies would be exposed to many life-long risks without the possibility of their consent. The ethical, moral and scientific thing to do would be to ban this research altogether, as well as embryonic stem-cell research.
Dr Sherley added that he understood “the curiosity and ambition of investigators who wish to undertake these frontier studies in human biology”, but said that such studies do not “make destroying innocent humans permissible. Embryos are living human beings. Gene-editing research as proposed … would ultimately kill every human embryo whom it edited.”
Order of Malta appeals to EU
The Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta has urged European Union states to agree on a common policy for the protection of refugees.
Fra’ Matthew Festing made his appeal to representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See whom he received at the Order of Malta headquarters in Rome this week. This appeal follows the launch of a mission by the order to save migrants crossing the Aegean Sea in partnership with the Greek coastguard.
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