A Government bill intended to tackle the problem of unregistered faith schools risks creating a ‘two-tier’ system of educational provision, the National Secular Society has warned. Writing to the Government, the NSS raised concerns that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will apply less stringent standards to unregistered faith schools by reclassifying them as ‘non-school’ independent educational institutions (IEI). Currently, if an institution provides full time education to more than five pupils of compulsory school age, it is legally defined as a school. Any institution which meets the legal definition of a school must register with the Department for Education, although some deliberately evade registration in order to teach a very narrow, religion-based curriculum without oversight. Under changes set to be introduced by the bill, some institutions which provide full time education would not be classified as schools, and would instead be registered as ‘non-school’ IEIs. The NSS said this potentially includes yeshivas – Jewish scripture schools for boys – a significant number of which operate covertly as illegal unregistered schools, or use loopholes to …