The Archbishop will host a major gathering today, 13th October 1999, of education experts and practitioners to emphasise the historic partnership of Church and State in education and to encourage the recruitment of more Christian teachers.

Those attending include Estelle Morris, Minister in the DfEE; Lord Dearing, Chairman of UFI, and the Bishop of Blackburn, Chairman of the Church of England's Board of Education; the Bishops of Manchester and Dover and 60 Head Teachers and College Principals from Church of England schools and colleges. The address follows:

Just a few hundred yards from here, in the gardens by the Victoria Embankment, a statue stands commemorating the achievements of one of this country's most significant educational reformers. His name was Robert Raikes. Although he was not the founder of Sunday Schools, he was the person who, with energy and entrepreneurial flair, turned them from being a small-scale local affair into a movement of major significance.

One mark of those early Sunday Schools was that they did not focus just on scriptural knowledge or religious instruction. Rather they sought to care for the poor and the underprivileged and to give them, as people made in the image of God, the opportunity to realise their human potential. Reading, writing and arithmetic all featured in those early syllabuses and it was no wonder that children, urged on in many cases by their parents, flocked to them. By 1851, about 70 years after the foundation of the first Sunday School, over two million children in England were involved in the movement and it had spread widely both in mainland Europe and across the Atlantic.

Nor should we see anything odd or unusual in the fact that this movement came from Christian roots. The Church, when it has been true to itself, and conscious of Christ's calling has always been involved in education. That has been true down the centuries whether we think of the monastic schools such as that founded by Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Grammar Schools of the Reformation period or the myriad of Primary Schools fostered by the National Society during the Victorian era. It is true too if you look at the spread of the Church geographically.

As our minds turn afresh to the situation in Pakistan I think, for instance, of the Christian Schools in Lahore, which are held in the highest esteem by their Muslim neighbours. Indeed I well remember sitting next to a member of the Cabinet of that country who spent some time telling me how many of his colleagues had gone to Christian-run schools. Or again I think of a conversation I had last year with President Museveni of Uganda. His first job was in a Church Missionary Society school where a headteacher spotted his potential and gave him the break he needed.

So, as we meet together today to think particularly about Church Schools and Christian Teachers and the contribution they can make to education I want to begin by underlining that it is natural, right and proper that we should. The Church has been involved in education for centuries - it will be involved long long after you and I have gone - and one of the challenges facing us in this generation is to do all we can to ensure that this plant is as healthy as it can possibly be.

My aim, therefore, in inviting you to this conference today is four-fold.

First I want to affirm the work you and your colleagues are doing in schools and colleges of every shape and hue up and down this country and those of you who support them in that task.

Second I want to provide a forum where those from a variety of disciplines and with a very diverse spread of expertise and knowledge can come together to share their experiences.

Third, I want us to draw some lessons from those experiences and use them to map out plans for future progress in this field.

Fourth, I want to encourage the recruitment of Christian teachers who will see education as a true vocation for their lives which has as it aim to form the lives, for the better, of the young they teach.

Last November, you may remember, the General Synod held a debate on Church Schools, recognising that, and I quote, 'Church Schools stand at the centre of the Church's mission to the nation'. The response to that debate, and subsequent ones in Diocesan Synods, was overwhelmingly positive and one result has been to set up a review of Church schools and their future development.

I am delighted that Lord Dearing, who is here with us today, has agreed to lead this very important inquiry. One of its key tasks will be to explore the potential for growth. And without prejudging the outcome of Lord Dearing's labours, the evidence from the grassroots is that the potential is considerable.

Across the country, Church Schools are extremely popular amongst parents and pupils from a wide variety of backgrounds and beliefs. In many cases they are hailed as beacons of excellence by the education authorities. Many are heavily oversubscribed. It is nice to be wanted; it is nice to be in demand. But we have a duty to respond. Provision is patchy-especially in secondary education. It cannot be right, and nor should we be satisfied with, the present situation where one in five children can attend a Church of England Primary School whilst only one in twenty can make that choice at a Secondary level.

Another priority area for Lord Dearing's Review is the future development of our partnership with the State. Here I must pay tribute to the way in which the Government has been prepared to listen to our views and our concerns, and in many cases to respond positively to them. I look forward to what the Minister has to say later this morning. It was the present Secretary of State after all who described the Church as a 'major partner with Government in transforming society'. We welcome the partnership and the sense of priority.

But, surely, some will still argue, why have Church Schools at all? Are they not a thing of the past rather than of the future, maintaining the sectarian divisions of a bygone era? To them I reply, that argument simply does not hold water. Our schools are rooted in their local communities, listening carefully to and reflecting the traditions and concerns of those communities. But more than that, Church schools stand for values within the Christian tradition which parents perceive to belong to our heritage as a nation and the ethical standards and moral norms which go back to the teaching of Christ. These elements, we believe, are worth preserving and worth treasuring for future generations of children.

And that presents us with a major challenge.

Moving into a new era of expansion in Church Schools will clearly mean new resources, and that crucially will mean more Christian teachers. And here there is a vital role for the Church Colleges to play. Of course, we are all well aware that a Christian faith cannot simply be acquired as a qualification like any other academic discipline. The journey it involves for the individual is a great deal more complex and subtle than that. Where I think the Colleges can, and must help, is by fostering the faith of their students, however fragile at times that may be, and by helping them to discover how to express that faith appropriately whether in leading worship in a primary school or in teaching science to a group of fairly unruly year 11's. I look forward in particular to hearing the contributions of Tim Wheeler and Anthea Millett as they reflect on these challenges from the perspective of their current offices.

But this is not just a task for the Church Colleges and Government Agencies. This is something which the Church as a whole needs to support. One way I believe we can help in this is by fostering the concept of Vocation. As you may know the figures for the number of people being recommended for ordination rose in 1999 for the fourth year running. But vocation must not be confined just to the priesthood or even the law, education and health care. Rather we have a responsibility to foster that rich, holistic vision of God's calling of people to be the best they can be for him in serving others and building the wider community. Very few occupations, paid or unpaid, are excluded by that definition and it is our task to pass that vision onto others. In the context of our conference today, we need to enthuse our young people in particular with the opportunities that teaching presents. If we do, and if we pray, then I believe we can expect great things from God in raising up a new generation of women and men committed to teaching in all the schools - not just the Church Schools - of our land.

I began with Robert Raikes. I could, equally well, have spoken about the National Society, founded in the year he died and responsible for the foundation of 17,000 schools in the forty years that followed. No one, I think, could have predicted the magnitude of that spectacular growth and there is no doubt that this nation was radically changed as a result. Today, too, I believe we live at a time of great opportunity. We now have our best chance for several decades to advance the cause of Church schools - what they stand for, and what they offer our children and grandchildren, as we enter the new millennium. It is sometimes forgotten that the Church blazed a trail for education into the present century, and - though a revitalised understanding with the State - we can help lead the way in the next. My hope, therefore, is that we shall use today both to sharpen the focus of that vision, and to take steps that will help it become even more of a reality in the years ahead.