Catholics warn equality and diversity rules could victimise Christian teachers

The Roman Catholic Church has spoken out against a proposed new code of conduct for school teachers, saying that it could force teachers who refuse to promote Islam and gay rights out of the profession.

The warning was issued by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales to the General Teaching Council. It said that the code could seriously undermine the religious character of Church schools and would impose on them a hostile secular morality, reports the Daily Mail.

Principle 4 of the code, which will be legally binding, states that teachers must “proactively challenge discrimination” and “promote equality and value diversity in all their professional relationships and interactions”, before they can become registered teachers.

In a written submission to the General Teaching Council, Oona Stannard, head of the Catholic Education Service, said “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”.

She added that the same was true of the code’s call to “promote equality”.

“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," said Stannard.

There are fears that the new code could lead to equality campaigners filing complaints against teachers who fail to follow the new rules.

According to Stannard, the Church is concerned that Catholic teachers may not feel able to teach in accordance with their conscience under the new code. This, she says, could lead to Catholics either leaving teaching or not becoming teachers in the first place.

The new code being proposed by the General Teaching Council would be applied to all schools, including nearly 7,000 schools run by the Catholic Church and the Church of England.

The Council is saying that all teachers will need to sign up to the code before they can begin working. The code is also to be used to assess cases of serious misconduct among teachers.

The code will be used by school governing bodies and local authorities for recruiting and disciplining teachers, as well as by employment tribunals who will use it to judge claims of unfair dismissal.

The Christian Institute has said that the new code might mean that teachers could be victimised if they do not wish to promote homosexual materials, or other religions such as Islam.

The Director of the Christian Institute, Colin Hart, said, “Respect for people as people is not the same as respecting or valuing every religious belief or sexual lifestyle.

“Forcing this on Christian teachers is to force them to go against their conscience... Teachers are there to teach not to be diversity officers.”