School admission policies: Our world has changed, so must we

At a moment when social diversity is the defining characteristic of our age, it seems at best anachronistic to frame the debate about access to publically-funded education as an issue to be resolved between any particular religion and the State.

At a moment when every terrorist atrocity carried out by Islamic extremists underlines the failure to assimilate every person, irrespective of origin, living in a society to, in the very broadest sense, a shared sense of community, making decisions about access to publically-funded education based on a child’s religion seems, at the very least, unwise.

At its worst, it seems simply dangerous and stupid.