SAM GALBRAITH, the former education minister, has ignited a row over denominational education by claiming Catholic schools are the “root cause” of sectarian bigotry in Scotland and should be scrapped.

Galbraith, a former cabinet colleague of Jack McConnell and one of Scottish Labour’s most influential figures, said he believed having separate schools for Catholics and Protestants fostered intolerance.

The issue was raised at a sectarian summit hosted by McConnell earlier this month at which Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of the Catholic church in Scotland, complained about the “anti-Catholicism” that, he claimed, was evident in media coverage.

He is to launch a “media monitoring” campaign in the new year and is urging outlets to be balanced in their coverage of denominational education.

A spokesman for the cardinal said that as no mainstream political party had questioned the existence of Catholic schools or proposed their abolition, and the issue was not a matter of pressing public concern, those who raised the matter in the face of such disinterest risked “fanning the flames of religious hatred”.

Galbraith is the most influential figure from a mainstream party to have voiced his opposition to denominational schools.

“Religious schools entrench a divide in society in young minds, which carries on in later life and leads to divisions and sectarianism. It is the root cause,” he said.

“Jack [McConnell] is doing a lot of good stuff trying to push it forward, but we’re only just really playing with the problem until we desegregate schools.

“Sectarianism is a terrible blight on our society, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think we’re going to solve it without solving the school problem.

“I want all kids to be brought up in non-denomination education and for religion to be a private matter to be dealt with at home, not in our schools.”

Galbraith called on McConnell to review the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act that protects the status of Catholic schools funded by the government.

He said ministers should consider imposing a requirement that existing Catholic schools could only continue to receive state funds if support for them is demonstrated by a consultation process with local parents.

He was supported by Lord Moonie, the former defence minister and Kirkcaldy MP, who said: “Religion has no role in the education of children other than under the auspices of the church. I don’t think it should be taught as anything other than an abstract subject.”

Alan McDonald, moderator of the Church of Scotland’s general assembly who attended the summit, said he too supported the view that religious schools may reinforce prejudice and stereotyping.

“The system of separate schools was started in a very different context in a different time. It is a different time now. It is a different Scotland,” he said.

Sheilagh Kesting, the moderator designate who takes over next year, said: “The best way of educating people is to do it in an integrated way and bring something of the ethos of the faith schools into ordinary schools.”

She added that she “would prefer that there were no faith schools and there were broad-based state schools for everybody”.

Writing in The Sunday Times today, Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic media office, said those who advocated the closure of religious schools were “staggeringly intolerant”.

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