So school is the new church?

Sir, - Andrew Lothian (November 10) wonders what the next Census will reveal about the numbers of Christians in Scotland.

He will be reassured to know the results will be skewed in their favour.

In August 2016, the National Records of Scotland office published the 2021 Census Topic Consultation Report which confirmed that the next Scottish Census will continue to ask the ‘religion’ question on the basis of ‘belonging to’, and the cited reason for collecting this data is to assist with determining demand for segregated, denominational schooling.

This is a dangerous proposition as it makes the unwarranted assumption that people of one faith or sect will automatically demand segregated schooling for their children. It also reveals Scottish Government thinking on the direction of our education system, that children will continue to be segregated according to their parents’ faith and the Scottish state education apparatus will indulge those parents.

This against a backdrop of emptying pews and closing churches.

So school is the new church.

It is not time that Scotland’s appalling segregation of its children is consigned to history, for their sakes? Alistair McBay. National Secular Society, 5 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh.