Surely the time has come for the Government to think again about its plans to increase the number of faith schools in Britain?

The growing throng of organisations casting doubt on the policy was swelled again yesterday by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers which called on the Government to scrap the plans altogether.

School is a place for learning and not just about academic subjects. It should also be the place where young minds are imbued with respect for others, with basic citizenship values, with general life skills and with an understanding of all the elements that go to make up our multi-faith, multi-cultural world.

The nature of a faith school is inevitably that its main religious assembly promotes its sponsoring brand of religion. It is a natural consequence of the fact that many Catholics want their children to go to a Catholic school and many Muslims want their children to go to a Muslim school: each expects the values of their faith to be prevalent.

Of course, they will argue that children are taught about all faiths in the classroom and, of course, that is part of the curriculum which they should be encouraged to expand. But the pervasive atmosphere in the school - not least because of its inevitable make-up - is likely to tend towards the religion which appears in its title.

Surely now is the moment for a serious debate and investigation into whether a fairer and more just society would be better achieved by religious assembly and religious sponsorship being removed from schools and returned to the churches, mosques and temples.

Schools can only be truly multi-cultural if they teach, rather than preach, religion.