Members of Scotland’s Free Church have been urged to consider starting their own schools.
Rev David Robertson, the Free Church of Scotland Moderator, urged the denomination to consider the prospect during his keynote address at the General Assembly in Edinburgh.
He said the current state education system in Scotland is “more about training people for jobs and social engineering than it is about educating people”.
He added: “We may not yet be able to set up Christian schools, but that does not mean we should not be involved much more in the current education system.
“We should honour and pray for our teachers, encourage our pupils and seek to educate the educators.”
The Free Church Moderator continued: “And we need to lobby government for a more tolerant and progressive system of education in our state schools.”
Rev Robertson said the church should also call on the Scottish Government to support a system which allows churches to set up faith-based schools.
“Let the secular humanists have their schools, and let the Christians have theirs, and let parents have the choice,” he said.
“Education has become more about training people for jobs and social engineering that it is about educating people.
“As we have moved away from a Christian view of education to a social engineering, collectivist mindset, we now tell children what to think, rather than teaching them how to think.
“The danger is that we end up with this collectivist mindset where people are scared to think for themselves and just go along with the prevailing zeitgeist.”