At this week’s annual conference of the National Union of Teachers in Manchester, delegates agreed a policy calling for a reduction in the number of faith schools. As a trade-off, they also called for all schools to make “reasonable accommodations” to meet the religious needs of all pupils and respect the diversity of their beliefs. What this means is open to interpretation and the cause of some speculation.

In a significant swipe against private education, the approved NUT policy document, In good faith, declares: “The existence of independent fee-paying schools is detrimental to community cohesion.” However, phrases like “community cohesion”, while betraying a commitment to official multiculturalism, are hardly an indication of a more secular approach to education. Indeed, the document merely declares that “there should be a move away from the current position in which 33% of maintained schools have a religious character”. Not abolition just yet then.

Despite the timid nature of the NUT proposals, they are at loggerheads with the thrust of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which opened the way to an expansion of faith schools and academies backed by religious interests. This is the act that is based on the 2005 white paper Higher standards, better schools for all. Faith schools were further promoted in September last year by the department for children, schools and families (DCSF). Its Faith in the system document argued both that faith schools raised standards (not supported by the evidence) and developed “community cohesion” (a direct lie). DCSF secretary of state Ed Balls seems to be having second thoughts. He told a House of Commons select committee at the start of the year: “It is not the policy of the government nor my department to expand the number of faith schools. We’re not leading a drive for more faith schools.”

In a curious interpretation of his union’s new policy, NUT general secretary Steve Sinnott commented: “I believe that there will be real benefits to all our communities and youngsters if we could find space within schools for pupils who are Roman catholics, Anglican, methodist, Jewish, Sikh and muslim to have more religious instruction. You could have imams coming in, you could have the local rabbi coming in and the local Roman catholic priest” (my emphasis - The Guardian March 25). Sinnott seems to be basing this on In good faith’s call that, “All schools must make ‘reasonable accommodations’ to meet the religious needs of all pupils ...”

Attempting to square the circle between the merits of secular education and the ‘rights’ of belief-based ‘communities’ (read the rights of self-appointed ‘community leaders’) has therefore produced a bit of a quandary for the NUT executive and Sinnott. His remarks certainly exercised both reactionaries and liberals in a range of newspapers as conference closed. Bizarrely, many seem to think that the NUT proposals mean brainwashing children and young people by visiting clerics, some of whom, perish the thought, may be prone to fundamentalism of one sort or another.

Sinnott’s words, which are hardly reflected in the document’s text, were a gift to the rightwing press. Misleadingly heading its article ‘Muslim clerics “should teach in British schools”’, The Daily Telegraph quoted John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, who was antagonistic: “I would have thought this plan could compound the problem if the people coming into schools were offering extreme views - how would you have any control over what was being taught in your school?” (March 25). Obviously the dissemination of mainstream christian doctrine, to which pupils are subjected both in maintained establishments and state schools (where a daily “act of worship” is required by law) is not considered “extreme” in any way.

Where is the Socialist Workers Party in all this? In the thick of it. After all, it does have more than a few members of the NUT within its ranks. And it was during its time in Respect before the catastrophic split a supporter of the rights of muslims to be educated in separate schools. But its position has not changed publicly post-Respect split.

In the issue of the SWP paper before NUT conference, Nick Grant, who is secretary of Ealing NUT, identified the important issues that were due to be dealt with over the Easter weekend (‘Key issues for NUT conference’ Socialist Worker March 22). Among those mentioned were the union’s pay campaign, gender and race equality, and Stop the War; but nowhere does even one phrase about faith schools slip out. This is, after all, an important NUT policy that opposes the growth of such schools and even tentatively suggests they ought to be curtailed (a motion proposed by two Leicester delegates condemning faith schools much more radically was not reached). Yet neither comrade Grant nor anyone else writing in the pre-conference issue of Socialist Worker saw this as worthy of comment.

What about the March 29 issue, which would have been in preparation just as the conference was ending? Well, it carries no fewer than 11 reports, leading with the decision to organise a one-day strike over pay. An article by Sadie Robinson, entitled “Teachers debate future of education”, noted: “Other important debates included pupil behaviour, class sizes, city academies and military recruitment in schools.” Talk about significant silences. Not even the “expanded online version” of Socialist Worker has a single mention of faith schools - despite the fact that the conference debate was a lead item on BBC radio news for much of March 24, the day before the paper was published.

Of course, when pushed or put on the spot, the SWP will always say that it is formally in favour of secular education. How could an organisation claiming to be socialist or revolutionary do otherwise? In point of fact, though, as we have seen all too often in recent years, when it comes to Marxist ‘shibboleths’ the SWP is second to none in shrugging them off.

Following its break with Galloway and the Respect “muslim activists”, you might have thought that the SWP would ‘rediscover’ secularism, just as it has abortion rights. But it is as though John Rees and co cannot quite make up their minds whether to reinstate this principle - and as a result are too embarrassed even to report something as controversial as faith schools.

Within the UK, the Church of England is of course still the state church and thus the British state is still far from secular. The archbishop of Canterbury is the church’s primate, but the UK sovereign, currently Elizabeth II, is its titular head in unison with her status as head of state. All are intertwined.

As part of our minimum programme, we communists seek to remove the Church of England’s special position, including in education, where it operates the majority of faith schools. But we simultaneously seek to reduce state handouts to faith schools to zero and secularise education for all children. Certainly that means no charitable status and no tax breaks for private religious schools.

If parents want their offspring to attend out-of-school activities that include religious teaching, then so be it. But that does not give anyone the right to inculcate religious propaganda within school hours. So there must be no more indoctrination or ‘acts of worship’ at state schools. A rounded syllabus, however, must include a study of different religions. Full and frank comparison of religious and secular ideas has to be the aim of all sincere educationalists, be they religious or not, believers or atheists.

Secularism is not the prerogative of non-believers alone: far from it. There is absolutely no contradiction in a believer supporting secularism; why should there be? It is, for example, the ostensible attitude of hundreds of millions of believers in India, be they buddhist, christian, hindu, muslim, Parsee or Sikh, with respect to the state.

Separation of religion from the state, which in the UK means the Church of England’s brand of christianity, is certainly no idle dream. On the other hand, extending the preferential treatment of the Church of England to other faiths is nonsensical and thoroughly reactionary. Only recently, Sweden formally separated the church and state: on January 1 2000, the Swedish constitution was changed to this effect. The heavens did not fall.

On the other hand, outward signs of an individual’s religious beliefs must not be penalised or their appearance banned. So, if school students wish to sport religious symbols such as a cross, crucifix or star of David, or wear a hijab, Sikh turban or other like adornment, then it should be up to them (for younger children no doubt parents/guardians will decide). While religion needs to relegated to a realm outside of school, the right to what is personal and individual must be respected.