The row over Labour’s plan to introduce VAT on private school fees deepened this week with the news that Cedars School school in Greenock, a small, independent Christian institution, will close next month due to falling student numbers and “the increased costs associated with the Government’s plan”.
Today one of our readers attacks “one of the meanest things the new Labour Government has done”.
Norman A Ogston of Johnstone writes: "One of the meanest things the new Labour Government has done is to add VAT to all private schools from January next year, which is causing the closure of Cedars, a small faith school in Greenock.
"The reason that parents and particularly Christian parents choose to send their children to private and faith schools are not only because class sizes are smaller and educational attainment generally higher but they want their children educated in schools like Cedars 'founded on Christian values and ethos' and not subjected to LGBT ideology and anti-Christian teaching. This has led to the growth of Christian schools like Melville Knox in Aberdeen and Glasgow, and also home schooling.
"It is well to remember that it was Thomas Chalmers, an eminent Scottish minister, who started Christian schools and of course it was the vision of John Knox to have a church and school in every parish in Scotland.
"In England another clergyman, Dr Thomas Guthrie, started ragged schools in 1847 when children were receiving no education at all. In 1872 education was handed over to the state. Religious education and school assemblies were statutory and I remember at Queen's Park Secondary the day started with an assembly when a hymn was sung, a Scripture read and a prayer said.
"Sadly the secularisation of society over the past 50 years has led to the erosion of Christian values and morality. Christian schools seek to uphold Christian values and morality and for that they should be supported and not penalised by the Government."
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