Blurb:

Faith-based schools raise a series of interesting questions in the political
debate with regard to public education. First of all, public education has
the dual task of providing all citizens with a standard level of literacy and
educating new citizens. In fact, public education may be seen as crucial for
building a sense of national unity through transmission of the values and
principles on which the national identity has been founded. In this perspective,
issues may arise concerning the role and the degree of autonomy
of faith-based schools—that is, schools with a specific, religiously-inspired,
educational concept—with regard to public education as a whole. What is
the balance between freedom of education and social cohesion? Moreover,
in a context of increasing religious diversity, issues may arise in relation to
the status of faith-based schools of non-majoritarian religious traditions.
Second, in countries in which education is mostly provided by the public
sector but is chronically underfinanced, economic support for faithbased
schools, which mainly act in the private sector, gives rise to fierce
criticism from a large sector of the population. These concerns may apply
to the relations between private and public education in a broad sense.
Nonetheless, when considering faith-based schools, the matter is complicated
by the overall status of religion within the public sector.