Education: English Baccalaureate Certificate

Lord Bishop of Exeter Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Exeter]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl for this short debate and I share with him many concerns about the importance of the arts in education, particularly the importance of guaranteeing effective engagement with the arts for the totality of a child’s school career, including through public examinations. The exclusion of an art strand from the core EBacc suggests an overnarrow focus and a certain kind of Philistinism that values only those subjects seen, perhaps mistakenly, as contributing overtly to our economic life.

Alongside that general concern about downplaying the arts, it will come as no surprise that I have a particular worry about the other exclusion; namely, religious education. I hope that I do not need to rehearse the reasons why inclusion in the EBacc is essential for the continual well-being of the subject, nor, more fundamentally, why RE must be retained as a core element of the education of every pupil in our schools.

Understanding the impact of, in this country, Christianity and, in the rest of the world, all major faiths on life and culture, on history and politics, and on the moral and legal codes is fundamental to living as an engaged, articulate citizen, such as a healthy society requires. But religion is also inextricably connected to the arts. For western culture, that means predominantly Christianity. How can one understand and appreciate the music of JS Bach without a knowledge of the Christian faith and the context out of which his music sprang? Think of the Passions, the cantatas, the Mass. Similarly with the great masters. A huge amount of western art just is shaped by the Christian story, the Biblical record, and the life and history of the Christian church. Much great drama is dealing with the existential themes of redemption and salvation, the cost of human living, the nature and existence of God, and the challenges of the moral life.

Students who are ignorant about Christianity are locked out of a crucial part of understanding and experiencing art and culture. The relationship between the other world faiths and the arts is different but the understanding of faith as a driver for and outcome of artistic expression of all kinds is fundamental to arts education and cultural development across the board. As the case is made for the inclusion of the arts in the English baccalaureate, I ask that the case for religious education is heard as well.