MAIL Online: The Roman Catholic Church has severely criticised a proposed new code of conduct for teachers which it says will force Christian schools to actively promote Islam and gay rights.
The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has warned the General Teaching Council, by the professional regulatory body, that many teachers will quit the profession because they will not be able to accept the revised code of conduct in good conscience.
Their advisers say the code would also seriously undermine the religious character of church schools by imposing on them a hostile form of secular morality.
The legally-binding code would discriminate against Christian teachers in recruitment and in the classroom, they say.
Principle 4 of the code demands that teachers ‘proactively challenge discrimination’ and ‘promote equality and value diversity in all their professional relationships and interactions’ before they can be registered.
It means that campaigners can complain if teachers fail to observe the new demands and that teachers and schools can be punished if a complaint is upheld.
Oona Stannard, head of the Catholic Education Service, an agency of the bishops’ conference, told the GTC in a written submission that ‘there was an understandable fear that the call to “proactively challenge discrimination” could be used to oppose faith schools per se, and the rights that they have in law, for example, to select leaders who are of the faith’.
‘This anxiety extends similarly to the direction to “promote equality”,’ Miss Stannard said.
‘It would be unacceptable to expect anyone to be required to promote something contrary to their own faith beliefs and, indeed, it would not be possible for a person of faith to promote another faith – this is a matter of conscience.’ Catholic Church Slams New Code of Conduct Forcing Teachers to Promote Islam and Gay Rights >>> By Simon Caldwell | Monday, March 2, 2009
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