Religious education (RE) is causing a stir in the United Kingdom after head teachers voted to make RE classes compulsory. The referendum comes as concerns about parental opt-out increase in the nation.
Why Parents Don't Allow Children To Take Religious Education
In England, some parents are taking out their kids from religious education classes as they believed that RE challenges the teaching of British values. However, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) stresses the significance of religious literacy in education by teaching students to respect the views and opinions of other people, BBC News notes.
Who's Responsible In Teaching Children About Faith: The School Or The Parents?
With the increasing debate on whether or not parents should withdraw their children religious education classes, Christopher Howse of The Telegraph believed that RE is a matter for parents and not for schools. But Howse emphasizes that kids should be ignorant of the Bible.
"It is as though they thought children belonged to the state and must be protected from the beliefs of their parents," Howse wrote. "It was not always so. Even in the Army, Jews and Catholics fell out before church parade. It was their right. It still is the right of parents to pull children out of unwelcome religion classes."
Religious Education Reform
According to National Secular Society campaigns director Stephen Evans, he believed that parents shouldn't be allowed to choose what subjects their children learn in school. However, due to the "outdated and wholly unsatisfactory arrangements" in religious education, parental opt-out is necessary to protect religious freedom.
Evans also called for a reform in religious education before ending head teachers end parental opt-out. He also added that schools with a religious character aka "faith schools" should not teach religion based on their exclusive perception.
"Faith schools should lose the ability to teach about religion from their own exclusive viewpoint, RE should be comprehensively reformed into a new academic subject that covers a variety of religious and non-religious worldviews, and religious representatives should not have undue influence over the subject content," Evans explained, as per National Secular Society. "Until this is done and all vestiges of confessionalism are removed, we'll campaign to keep the opt-out to ensure parental rights and pupils' religious freedoms are protected."
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