The BBC News website asked delegates at the National Union of Teachers Conference in Manchester what they thought of the plans.

Schools could teach Koran

"I am aware of the important role that faith schools have played in the development of education in Britain, but in a full multi-cultural society I think they have had their day.

"We should allow existing voluntary-aided faith schools to run their course but we should not have any more."

"I think it would be difficult to allow children religious instruction in schools because it would lead to segregation.

"In this day and age, some children will pick on any difference as an excuse for bullying.

"Faith schools do have a place in education, my grandchildren go to them, and they are all taught in exactly the same way as other children."

"I would like to see faith schools abolished.

"We are trying to foster, as a society, tolerance in children and multi-culturalism, but we have in our education system a fundamental principle that allows schools to discriminate on the basis of religion."

"I think it's a good idea. I would support the union in that. It perhaps makes us more tolerant of other people's faiths. When you keep children of different religions separate they don't learn about other faiths."

"It's part of a much wider debate on encouraging all schools to be fully comprehensive and reducing the opportunity for some schools to have the chance to be selective.

"Selection on the basis of faith is saying that because we think this faith is the one, we are rejecting other faiths."