Religious Education

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, for securing this debate. I am grateful for this opportunity to set out the Government’s position on religious education and our response to the Commission on Religious Education’s report. During this debate, noble Lords have argued strongly for the importance of religious education and a commitment to its continuation and improvement. The Government share that commitment.

We have decided that now is not the time to implement the commission’s ambitious recommendations radically to reform religious education. However, the Government agree that good-quality religious education can develop children’s knowledge of the values and traditions of Britain and other countries. It can foster understanding among different faiths and cultures. It is an essential part of a school’s legal duty to promote young people’s spiritual, moral and cultural development. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, when he said that we have to help children to understand their way of being in the world.

Schools and colleges have a duty actively to promote fundamental British values as part of the duty to prevent people becoming drawn into terrorism. These shared values—democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and respect and tolerance for those of other faiths and beliefs—unite us and underpin our society. The religious landscape of this country forms part of those principles, and the noble Lord, Lord Stone, referred to the value of unity and oneness. Understanding our British values is a vital part of that. I perhaps have more faith in the power of the teaching of British values than other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and it is of course still an evolving part of the responsibility of schools, having been introduced only recently.

According to the school workforce statistics, 3.3% of all teaching hours in state-funded secondary schools in 2017 were spent teaching religious education. This compares with a figure of 3.2% in 2010, so it has remained broadly stable over that period. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, worries that we do not have enough time in the curriculum for the teaching of religious education. However, we do not specify that equal time needs to be spent by each year group on the subject, only that it must be taught throughout a pupil’s school life. For example, there is no reason why schools could not dedicate more time at key stage 3 than at key stage 4, when pupils are generally not studying for GCSE. The key stage 3 national curriculum is designed as a three-year programme of study to prepare children to start GCSEs in year 10.

The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Alderdice, worry that there is not enough time at key stage 4. Having said that, the EBacc was designed to be limited in size to allow pupils to continue to study additional subjects and reflect their individual interests and strengths. This allows not only for schools to teach RE, as we would expect, at key stage 4, but for religious studies to be a feasible GCSE option.

However, one of the commission’s most concerning statements was that it had found a number of maintained schools and academies either no longer teaching RE or no longer teaching it as a dedicated subject. On that point, I would like to be very clear: RE is not optional. Schools not teaching it are acting unlawfully or are in breach of their academy funding agreements. We will take action if this is found to be the case.

I assure the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Alderdice, that where we are made aware of a school not meeting its duty to provide religious education, my department will investigate, as long as the school’s complaint procedures have been followed. In the last two years, the department has received only one formal complaint about a school not complying with its area’s agreed syllabus for religious education. Following the department’s intervention, the school has revised its curriculum to meet requirements.

One of the commission’s key recommendations is to change legislation so that all state-funded schools have to deliver the national entitlement on religion and world views. Reworded legislation would therefore be extended to encompass non-religious world views. Many teachers already cover aspects of world views in their RE lessons. Both GCSE and A-level content specifications include reference to non-religious views. But the potential scope of what could be considered a world view is very wide. Agreeing precisely what should be taught as part of a national entitlement would be fraught with difficulty.

The commission’s report suggests that existentialism and Confucianism are examples of suitable non-religious world views as they each make ontological and epistemological claims. This illustrates how defining world views and then deciding those worthy of study is complex. There is a risk that religious education is diluted in an attempt to embrace many other strands of thinking. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raises the responses of the Catholic Education Service and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Both have publicly expressed their concern about this. They are unlikely to be alone. This would make it difficult to agree a consensus.

An important focus of the commission report was the need to recruit, train and retain specialist teachers of religious education. This is key to maintaining the integrity of the subject and the quality of teaching. In recognition of this, we made two announcements in September. First, we increased bursaries so that RE trainees with a First, 2.1, 2.2, PhD or Master’s will now receive £9,000. Secondly, we allocated new funding for religious education subject knowledge enhancement courses of up to eight weeks. These offer graduates the chance to refresh their subject knowledge either before or during initial teacher training.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester raises the importance of Ofsted assessments of religious education, and I agree with him that this is an important part of an inspection of a school. I will take back his suggestion that to achieve an outstanding grade, schools should provide good-quality religious education.

The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Watson, worry about the decline in teaching of religious education in schools. Actually, the picture is not quite as bleak as one might think. There was a 21% increase in the number of pupils entered for the full-course RE GCSE between 2010 and 2018, from 176,000 to 213,000 pupils. There has also been an increase in the percentage of the total key stage 4 cohort entered for this examination, from 28% in 2010 to 37% in 2018. This is important.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for giving way. He talks about key stage 4, but as the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said and I repeated, a third of key stage 4 students do not get religious education, so cannot sit exams in it. If the Minister wants to increase the figures, as I think we all do, surely he should be getting those 33% of schools to make sure they do what they should be doing under the law and teach religious education at key stage 4.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Referring to my earlier point, we will always investigate any serious allegation about the non-teaching of religious education, and this report certainly highlights examples of that. If they are referred to us, we will certainly investigate. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, we are committed to ensuring that religious education remains a key part of a child’s education.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned Article 18—freedom of religion—and violations of it. The Government are concerned about the severity of violations of the freedom of religious belief in many parts of the world. Defending and promoting human rights is an essential aim of the foreign policy of global Britain, and derives from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The report mentions that the right to withdraw from religious education has existed in our education system since 1870 and was reconfirmed in legislation in the 1944 and 1988 education Acts. The commission found that many schools are not clear on the scope of this right and how to handle applications for withdrawal. The report recommended that the DfE provide clearer guidance. Since then the National Association of Head Teachers and the National Association of Teachers of RE have produced guidance for schools on this issue. The Government are comfortable with this guidance; my department will help to raise awareness of it.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised a concern about the locally agreed syllabus for RE. For many schools the current requirement is that they follow a locally agreed syllabus monitored by the standing advisory councils for religious education. The department’s guidance is clear: that at local level, representatives of religious and other interests can serve as formal or co-opted members on both SACREs and in groups of this conference to review the locally-agreed syllabus. These are important principles which should not be lost without more careful consideration.

I thank the Commission on Religious Education for its well-considered report. Although it offers radical options for reform which at the moment we cannot consider implementing, we welcome the debate that it generates. The Secretary of State for Education has been clear that reducing teacher workload is one of his top priorities, and as part of that he committed in March not to make further changes to the curriculum. In this context we must decline to take forward the commission’s vision for the future of RE in England.

Committee adjourned at 7.35 pm.