Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what consideration her Department has given to the proportion of teachers recorded as teaching religious education who are specialists in and usually teach other subjects when (a) assessing the size of the religious education teacher workforce, (b) determining whether there is a shortage of specialist religious education teachers and (c) deciding whether to provide a bursary for religious education initial teacher training.

The government values and recognises the importance of all subjects, including religious education (RE). There were 15,781 teachers of RE in 2025/26.

As a consequence of a more favourable supply forecast, the recruitment need for RE fell for 2026/27. There were 492 postgraduate RE ITT trainees in 2025/26, the highest number of RE postgraduate ITT entrants since 2020/21.

The department reviews the need for initial teacher training (ITT) bursaries annually and will consider RE alongside all other subjects.

Further information is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, including information on the proportion of timetabled hours delivered by specialist teachers for each subject and key stage for secondary schools at national level. The latest available figures for RE by key stage are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/0326e399-7e8d-40ac-e607-08df06afb6ab.