UK to set school exams around Ramadan

[Ben Davis]

But surely that's the wrong way around isn't it? Nobody is stopping them from taking the exam. They have the opportunity given to them to do so, is it not to their own disadvantage if they do not take it? The disadvantage is entirely self-imposed (or enforced, by parents).

'Enforced' is the accurate representation and key to the point: the students aren't failing to take advantage of opportunity, they're being barred from the opportunity by an exam process which doesn't take in to consideration factors outside of the control of either the process or its consumers. That's a poorly designed process. There's a constraint here under which the process must operate: the religiosity of the parents/community. Think of the disadvantage that previous students have had, through no fault of their own, which can be fairly easily catered for by making a small change.

I admit it's a relatively small concession, given the times involved, but it's just another concession on religious grounds given by the state to crazy cults and religions.

I don't see it as a concession. I see it as something that the process should already do!

Whether it be the exemption given to Sikhs allowing them to contravene health and safety laws by not wearing a hard hat on a building site, or one given to Jews and Muslims allowing them to break the law (Slaughter House Act) in their barbaric ritual killings of animals,

They're not analogous to this situation because the people who are saying they don't want to wear hats/want to kill animals in a non-compliant way are in control of their actions; students aren't. It's important to remember that students are not yet legal adults therefore can't be held responsible in the same way.

it seems that this is demonstrably not secular.

I see it the other way round. A secular system in this context would mean that no preference should be afforded on grounds of religion/irreligion. The disadvantage that muslims have at ramadan equates to a preference afforded to all other religious/irreligious students. A truly secular system should seek to eliminate that.

I'm not about to side with the DM on this but one cannot ignore the religious angle of this. A truley secular system would give a firm date and say that's it. Whether you sit them or not is your choice, but it's on this date.

I'm not ignoring the religious aspect, I'm showing that it's irrelevant to the issue at hand: making sure that all students have equal opportunities. An inflexible process will almost inevitably suffer the failure to accommodate the needs of its consumers.

Then again, a truly secular system would remove state funded faith institutions, but here we are. A not so secular education system.

That I agree with.

Just to try & convince you that I've examined the contrasting point to my statements above: I tried analysing the situation as the failure demand resulting from parental religiosity thus making the change in schedule an undesirable process work-around. The root-cause fixes would be the removal of the parents or the islamic religion. If we assume that parents aren't going to readily give up their children and that interference from authorities to remove them would be unethical in the extreme, we're left with no other option but to accept islam as a social constraint. Likewise, if we assume that muslims aren't going to readily abandon their religion and that interference from authorities to enforce that adandonment or to remove islam from the UK would be unethical in the extreme, we're left with no other option but to accept islam as a social constraint.

Plus, giving students an less stressful time seems the compassionate thing to do, given the circumstances.