Christian Schools Trust, Accelerated Christian Education, and unnamed faith schools #fundie telegraph.co.uk

Creationism is still taught in dozens of faith schools despite Government threats to withdraw their funding, the Telegraph can disclose. Last August Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said schools found teaching creationism as scientific fact would not be eligible for any money from the taxpayer. Yet a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that 54 private schools are still being funded by local authorities, while continuing to teach that the Earth began with Adam and Eve.

Only 14 of the 91 schools teaching creationism have had their funding withdrawn, an investigation by the British Humanist Association revealed. The campaign group also found that some faith schools' science departments were teaching pupils to identify what happened on each of the days of the creation. The curriculum of one group of religious schools reads: "Creation stories give a holistic image of the origins of the earth, plants, animals and human beings." In another, it says that 'The Darwinian mechanism delivers clarifying power within a certain range of phenomena, but it is rooted in reductionist thinking and Victorian ethics and young people need to emerge from school with a clear sense of its limits.'

Separately, the Christian Schools Trust's current guidance to their schools says: "Young children within the schools would learn from the start of their schooling that they are created beings, that they are very valuable to God and that they are made in His image. "They would be taught that He is the Creator of all things, including all living things, and that He has designed this Earth to be their home. They would also learn that creation was originally good but that it is now flawed as a consequence of sin introduced into the human race by Adam and Eve." The BHA investigation also found five schools under the US firm Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) are also teaching creationism as science.

In the past, ACE has allegedly used the Loch Ness monster to discredit evolutionary theories, according to the BHA. Its content reads: "Some scientists speculate that Noah took small or baby dinosaurs on the Ark. Are dinosaurs still alive today? With some recent photographs and testimonies of those who claimed to have seen one, scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. "Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie', for short, has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur."

The group has explicitly discredited evolution in its various textbooks, according to the BHA. Another excerpt reads: "No branch of true science would make these kind of impossible claims without proof. "Because evolutionists do not want to believe the only alternative - that the universe was created by God - they declare evolution is a fact and believe its impossible claims without any scientific proof." Responding to the FOIs, Hackney council said it has informed schools about the rules introduced last August.

However, it added: "The Local Authority has not had correspondence with the schools" on a list of 21 schools the BHA identified as receiving state funding despite not complying with the guidance. Commenting on these latest findings, BHA director of public affairs and campaigns, Pavan Dhaliwal, said: "We congratulated the government last summer when it changed the rules on nursery place funding to this effect. "It is hugely disappointing therefore to discover that creationist schools have continued to receive state funds since the ban on their doing so came into force. "Little seems to have been done to ensure conformity to the new rules and the Department for Education (DfE) urgently needs to address this.

"The funding is administered by local authorities and they do not seem to have the same awareness as the DfE as to which local authorities are implicated by such a ban. "As we have done in the past, we will be doing all we can to raise the issue with relevant officials to ensure that the ban on funding is properly implemented."

7 comments

Confused?

So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register. Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.