Gwen Shlam's Blog: Religion 'must be in key school exam'

Bishop of Oxford says anti-Islam protests make the subject essential for the English baccalaureate

Religious leaders and theologians have condemned the decision to leave religious education off the list of GCSEs that go towards the controversial new English baccalaureate.

The chairman of the Church of England's education board, the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev John Pritchard, said that failing to take the study of religion seriously was "highly dangerous" at a time when groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) were staging violent protests against British Muslims.

Annual league tables on schools' performance published last week measured the proportion of pupils obtaining the English bac, which is awarded to teenagers who achieve GCSEs at grade C or above in English, maths, science, a foreign language and a humanities subject (history or geography) ? but not in RE.

Pritchard said: "The Church of England is pretty astonished at the omission of RE. I want to fire a warning salvo that there will be huge objection from the church and many other parts of society if it is not part of the core curriculum."

Pointing to claims last week by the Conservative party's co-chairwoman, Baroness Warsi, that Islamophobia had "crossed the threshold of middle-class respectability" and to the rise of the EDL, the bishop said: "RE is a real tool for creating that kind of cohesive community and society that we're looking for... we neglect it at our peril."

The subject, he said, was just as academic and rigorous as history and geography and was also extremely popular, with the number of students studying it to GCSE level climbing from 113,000 to 460,000 over the last 15 years.

Senior Jewish and Muslim figures backed the call for RE to be included on the English bac subject list. Many faith groups have written to the Department for Education expressing concern over its omission. The education secretary, Michael Gove, has indicated that he will look again at the area, without promising any change.

Until now the key measurement in league tables has been the proportion of pupils getting five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. But with success at the English bac now also being measured, many schools are likely to switch their attention to the traditional subjects that it demands. The recently published tables for last year's GCSE results revealed that fewer than one in six English students had qualified for the new certificate.

Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said he was particularly concerned about the impact of leaving RE off the list on students at Jewish schools, the vast majority of which make the subject compulsory.

"Religious studies has proven itself to be a valuable contribution to the academic curriculum, teaching students to respect themselves and others and, importantly, build identities which contribute favourably to all areas of society," he said.

"The multi-disciplinary nature of the subject, involving textual study, philosophical thinking, ethics, social understanding and the skills of analysis and reasoning, develops critical thinkers," said Benjamin.

Dr Hojjat Ramzy, vice-chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain's education committee, said he was "extremely worried" that RE was not being afforded a higher status, especially given the challenge posed by Islamophobia. "In our ever-growing multi-cultural and multi-faith society, it's very important that people, especially the younger generation, are aware of the religions and cultures of others," he said.

Members of the academic community joined calls for the humanities element of the English bac to be reconsidered, praising RE as a great developer of critical faculties as well as a key link to history, art, culture and politics.

"How can you understand Shakespeare without learning about the Bible, or understand the English civil war without understanding about disputes over how to interpret the Bible, or understand modern politics without understanding the difference between Islam and Christianity?" said Richard Swinburne, emeritus Nolloth professor of the philosophy of the Christian religion at Oxford University. "It's a mistake."

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, the Oxford church historian who presented the BBC series A History of Christianity, said the decision was short-sighted. "Religion matters to most human beings in the world today," he added. "To leave religion to the religious extremists, outside a good education system, is to distort it."

Rachel Williams

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