Marginalising religious education

Jan Pawson highlights the threat to religious education in schools

by Jan Pawson 24th February 2012

Pupils in British schools have had a statutory entitlement to religious education, which has been enshrined in law, since 1988. However, it seems that the importance of religious education (RE) teaching is being downgraded. Two significant factors are:

• the expansion of the academies programme, which appears to have diminished that entitlement – and accountability for its provision.
• that, in spite of widespread protests across the country, RE was excluded from the English Baccalaureate examination in 2010, as a humanity. There is hard evidence about the negative effect of the exclusion – for example, RE departments being cut and time for RE reduced.