CHURCH leaders believe a review on whether to end their legal right to make decisions on school education will recognise the "positive contribution" made by their representatives.
Councils must appoint three religious representatives to their education committees but MSPs yesterday continued a petition from the Edinburgh Secular Society (ESS) calling for this practice to be stopped.
ESS said it was "very strange" that a devolved parliament would allow people "under the control and discipline" of the international Vatican hierarchy and the "fundamentally undemocratic" Church of Scotland to make decisions on education.
Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee, most of whom are affiliated to the Church of Scotland, expressed sympathy with the ESS's views and agreed to seek advice from religious, secular and political organisations.
SNP MSP Angus MacDonald said he had seen church representatives vote on council issues where they had "failed to grasp the complexities" of the matter. But he predicted that the government of a "Christian country" would "not wish to exclude religious representation on education committees".
Fellow SNP MSP John Wilson, who declares no religious affiliation, said churches had "asserted undue influence" on council decisions.
Speaking after the decision, Rev Sandy Fraser, Convenor of the Church of Scotland Education Committee, said it would offer the opportunity for "new light to be shed on the positive contribution its representatives make, both to education and to the democratic process".
He said: "We believe that the review will see the role affirmed and retained. Our representatives on education authorities support the development of education in all its aspects. "
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