Ciaran Wilson and Caitlin Dunn live in the same neighbourhood in the east end of Glasgow. Every morning, they take the same route to school but, when the bell rings across the playground to signal the start of the school day, they walk through separate doors into different schools.

Five-year-old Ciaran goes into St Teresa’s primary, a Catholic school, while Caitlin, 10, goes into Saracen primary, a non-denominational school. Both share a campus in Keppoch, along with Broomlea primary for children with special needs. All the pupils on the campus share the same dining hall and playground, but they have separate classrooms and teaching staff.

Keppoch is part of a bold experiment in new schools across Scotland — an attempt, say its proponents, to counter the age-old rivalry between Catholics and Protestants.

Religious division in schooling has traditionally been part of Scottish society, enshrined in law since 1918 when Catholic schools were formally brought into the state sector. As a result, Scotland’s system of education has produced a culture where the mere mention of someone’s school is enough to mark them out as belonging to one or other of the country’s two rival religious “tribes”.

Because of educational segregation, many children can reach adulthood before befriending, or even encountering, a member of the other tribe. Yet the existence of denominational schools is supported by all the mainstream parties, which argue they are a legitimate response to the demands of Catholic parents. Moreover, the academic success of some Catholic schools, they say, is justification enough for their retention.

Critics, though, see a fundamental contradiction between this endorsement and the desire among those same parties to rid Scotland of sectarianism — which Jack McConnell, the first minister, has called “Scotland’s shame”. For them, politicians avoid challenging the status quo for more selfish reasons. Labour, in particular, they say has depended on the Catholic vote since the end of the first world war, so the party that in every other respect opposes the principle of parental choice in education makes an exception for Catholic schools.

This weekend those critics are joined from an unlikely source — Sam Galbraith, the one-time Labour education minister and a former cabinet colleague of McConnell’s, who wants to see denominational schools scrapped and replaced with genuinely comprehensive schools that do not teach religion.

The Catholic church has fought a determined battle against any politician, such as Galbraith, who is brave enough to raise his head above the parapet. In fact, next month Cardinal Keith O’Brien will launch a public relations campaign in an attempt to persuade Scotland’s media that a debate on Catholic education is not worth having.

He is alarmed at the blatant “anti-Catholicism” he believes is evident in the Scottish media, in letters, opinion columns and newspaper editorials. His view is that, since no mainstream party has a policy of scrapping Catholic schools, then to raise the issue at all is to “fan the flames of religious hatred”.

()O’Brien has conducted an analysis of media coverage of the issue. In the four-month period to December, Scottish daily newspapers published 43 letters, articles or editorials attacking Catholic schools.

“Constant attacks on Catholic schools and by extension the Catholic church can lead to a climate of anti-Catholicism which becomes embedded in the social fabric of society,” says Peter Kearney, director of the church’s press office.

“If the word ‘Catholic’ was replaced in these critical outpourings and, in its place the word ‘Jewish’ was inserted, many would, quite rightly, label elements of Scotland’s media anti-semitic. It seems anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable, perhaps even fashionable prejudice.”

Yet the issue is not as clear cut as the Catholic church suggests. The popularity of its schools is seldom tested in opinion polls and never in a ballot of parents. Instead, it prefers to rely on the large number of parents who choose to send their children to such schools. They are, say supporters, voting with their feet.

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