How do we generate a thriving multicultural society from our existing educational situation? Here are two visions of what this multicultural society might look like.

Vision 1. We have a strong common school in each catchment area. Each secondary school is, as far as possible, exactly the same as all the others. They are all offering a high standard of education in a wide range of subjects. Staff are equally well looked after in each school and parents who make use of these common schools see no advantage in sending their children to one school rather than another.

As far as religion is concerned, respect is shown for the personal quest of pupils and for the religious tradition of the home. Each tradition, whether religious or secular, is supported and children are encouraged to explore many different faith positions.

Within this vision we must also fit the existing faith-based and independent schools. Parents who want a stronger religious emphasis for their children, whether moral, pastoral or spiritual, will select faith-based schools and, if they can afford it, may well opt for the deluxe version within the private sector.

Vision 2. Here we have many different schools (Beacon, Islamic, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, City Academy etc), some specialising in technology, languages, music or science, some faith-based and some not. They are all part of the maintained system, subject to the same inspectors and all required to deliver the national curriculum with minor variations. Choice exists both ways: parents choose schools and schools choose pupils. Inevitably not all choices are met.

In this vision the private sector continues to exist but its raison d’etre is reduced. The choice for parents within the maintained sector is extensive and variation between schools is greater than in vision 1.

But what of the dark side of these visions? Here is a nightmare. Society becomes fragmented. Children are hermetically sealed within ghettos. Communities become hostile to each other. There is hatred between social classes. The rich live in gated communities, the poor on drug-infested estates; religious groups rarely meet each other except confrontationally; political ideologies fill the minds of those who are secularised, radicalised and marginalised; one group manages to secure dominance over the others and manipulate the media to present a false picture of society; it becomes the governing elite.

To maintain its dominance this group controls access to power and social and financial rewards. We have an image of South Africa under apartheid.

So which vision of society is least likely to end in the nightmare? Vision 1 was the situation in the 1970s and 1980s. We attempted to produce comprehensive schools that were all the same. What happened was that social factors and the influence of the home outweighed the impact of the school. We ended up with good comprehensives in wealthy areas and struggling ones on the other side of the tracks.

Comprehensives, similar in name, were actually enormously different from each other. As a result, the private sector flourished (though admittedly the Assisted Places Scheme gave it an additional boost). Social divergence increased.

Vision 2 is the one being offered at the moment by the Government though, to be fair, no one has said anything about the private sector being weakened.

After 1988, strong central control over the state-funded system of education introduced core uniformity. Multicultural diversity is not being encouraged. But it is the logic of multiculturalism, not the pressure of social fragmentation, which leads us to this diversity.

If we genuinely respect the many sub-cultures within Britain, and if the state is a community of communities, then it is reasonable to have faith-based schools. But they exist inside the framework that controls all-important funding and enforces inspection of the compulsory national curriculum. Faith is domesticated and civilised by the liberal-democratic framework that recognises it.

What we must do, however, is stop the possibility of the nightmare. It would be perfectly reasonable to ensure that in each faith-based school, two-thirds of places were reserved for its foundation and one-third were open. At certain points within the system children should be brought together, either at nursery level or within 16-18 institutions. The benefits of cross-cultural friendship would supplement the benefits of multicultural richness.

Dr William Kay directs the MA in religious education at King’s College, London Another Voice, 20