The National Secular Society has welcomed proposals to make religious education in Northern Ireland more pluralist and inclusive – but has warned this cannot be achieved without fundamental reforms.
The Department of Education (DoE) in NI is consulting on its review of the religious education (RE) core syllabus, following a UK Supreme Court ruling that current RE arrangements breach human rights.
In November, the court unanimously allowed the appeal in the case of JR87 – a daughter and father from Belfast who argued Christian-based RE and collective worship in NI’s schools are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Court found the current RE syllabus amounts to indoctrination. This included encouraging children to accept ideas such as creation being “the gift of God” as “absolute truths”.
The NSS responded to the consultation stressing the need for a reform of RE, and to call for collective worship (CW) and relationships and sex education (RSE) to also be addressed.
NSS calls for end to requirement for RE to be “based upon the Holy Scriptures”
The NSS broadly welcomed most of the review principles for the core syllabus, which include making RE pluralist and inclusive by “ensuring pupils explore a range of religious and non-religious worldviews”; structuring RE “in an objective manner to promote intellectual engagement”; and developing “critical and analytical skills”.
The NSS said these principles are currently not met partly because of the legal requirement for RE to be “based upon the Holy Scriptures”, and partly because the core syllabus is drafted by the four main Christian Churches in NI. It said the syllabus has “a clear Christian bias” – with no reference to other religions and beliefs apart from a single module at Key Stage 3 – and “is designed to inculcate Christianity rather than teach about religion objectively”.
The best way to ensure these review principles are met is to have the syllabus “designed and developed by educational professionals and academics” not “representatives of religious interest groups”, the NSS said.
The NSS also called for the abolition of the law requiring all schools in NI to give ministers of religion access to pupils as part of RE. Recent research has demonstrated this legal requirement opens the door for external evangelists to try and convert children to fundamentalist Christianity.
It also called on the DoE to prevent schools from teaching creationism as fact. This is unlawful in schools in England, but not in other parts of the UK.
The NSS disagreed with the review principle that Christianity should be retained as “the central focus” of RE. It said the central focus should be “understanding religions as a social and cultural phenomenon, rather than Christianity itself”.
Collective worship and relationships and sex education
Although the review’s terms of references do not include CW or RSE, the NSS said these should be considered because they often overlap with RE in practice.
The NSS said CW laws should be abolished, arguing that JR87 found the parental right to withdraw from CW is not sufficient to protect the rights of parents or children.
It said that guidance on RSE requires the subject to be taught ‘in harmony with the ethos of the school and reflect the moral and religious principles held by parents and school management authorities’, which enables it to be taught via RE or infused with religious ideas. This in turn leads to schools teaching stigmatising religious ideas about contraception, abortion, sex outside of marriage and same sex relationships.
The NSS called for this aspect of the guidance to be dropped.
NSS: RE syllabus must serve children’s education, not religious demands
NSS head of campaigns Megan Manson said: “As JR87 made clear, Northern Ireland’s RE core syllabus is in urgent need of reform to ensure the rights to freedom of religion and belief of parents and children are respected.
“Children must receive an education that prepares them for life in a diverse 21st century Northern Ireland, rather than one which primarily serves the demands of religious institutions.
“We therefore support the principles that the new syllabus must be pluralist, inclusive, objective and foster critical thinking. To achieve this, NI must reform the current laws, guidance and institutions involved in RE to ensure its confessional Christian bias can no longer prevail.”