Act now: Help make Religious Education inclusive in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland’s Department of Education is consulting on a proposed new Religious Education (RE) Core Syllabus.

The draft is a significant improvement on the existing syllabus, which was written by the four main churches in Northern Ireland and is exclusively about Christianity until Key Stage 3 - something that the UK Supreme Court described as ‘indoctrination’. The new draft syllabus recognises that RE should include both religious and non-religious worldviews, and should be taught in an informed, objective, critical, and pluralistic way.

However, under these new proposals Christianity would remain the syllabus’s ‘core element’, while humanism is only mentioned twice in the entire syllabus. This risks humanism still being treated as marginal or optional, and other religions and worldviews being taught in less depth than Christianity.

If you are a parent, carer, or teacher, please do use your own personal experience or the experiences of your children in your response to the Department.

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<div>Dear Curriculum team,I am responding to the RE draft core syllabus consultation and would like to make the following comments on questions 1, 3, and 5. I am broadly supportive of the proposed draft as it is a significant improvement on the current RE syllabus. However there are some areas that I feel should be improved upon to make this new syllabus more objective, critical, and pluralistic, Question 1: The vision for Religious EducationTo a moderate extent.The vision is a welcome improvement because it describes RE as the study of both religious and non-religious worldviews and says that it should be objective, critical, and pluralistic.However, this commitment is undermined by describing Christianity as the ‘core element’. Christianity should be studied in appropriate depth because of its historical and continuing importance in Northern Ireland, but it should not be the lens through which every other worldview is encountered.In my view the final vision should:<ul><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">describe Christianity as one important area of study rather than the core of the subject;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">require religious and non-religious worldviews to be studied on an educationally appropriate and equal basis;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">name humanism as an important and established non-religious worldview;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">make clear that RE is an academic subject and must not promote or encourage any particular religion or worldview; and</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">make sure that schools cannot reduce the breadth or balance of RE to reflect their religious ethos.</li></ul>Question 3: The content pupils should learnTo a moderate extent.The syllabus is broader and more academically rigorous than the existing one. Its inclusion of lived experience, internal diversity, philosophical and ethical enquiry, secularisation, and the relationship between religion, politics, and identity is welcome.However, non-religious worldviews remain peripheral. Humanism is mentioned only twice and pupils are not given a clear entitlement to study its beliefs, values, history, practices, ceremonies, and contribution to society.At Key Stages 2 and 3, schools are asked to study ‘Atheism, Agnosticism or Humanism’. This incorrectly treats these as equivalent alternatives. Atheism and agnosticism are positions about belief in, or knowledge of, gods. Humanism is a developed non-religious worldview with a long intellectual and cultural history.The final syllabus should:<ul><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">require the substantive study of humanism at every key stage;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">replace ‘Atheism, Agnosticism or Humanism’ with a clear requirement to study humanism as the ‘principal non-religious worldview’;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">give pupils a more proportionate entitlement to study religious and non-religious worldviews;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">use neutral language that does not present specifically religious concepts as universal; and</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">make clear that learning about a religious practice is different from taking part in worship, prayer, or religious observance.</li></ul>Question 5: Any other commentsThe success of the syllabus will depend on how it is implemented, resourced, inspected, and reviewed.The Department should publish clear guidance on what objective, critical, and pluralistic teaching requires in practice. It should explicitly distinguish academic RE from worship, prayer, devotional activity, and faith formation.Teachers will need suitable training and high-quality resources to teach both religious and non-religious worldviews accurately and in sufficient depth. This is particularly important for the teaching of humanism.Inspection arrangements should examine whether every school delivers the full syllabus and whether teaching is genuinely objective, critical, and pluralistic. Schools should not be allowed to narrow pupils’ educational entitlement because of their religious character or ethos.The syllabus should also be reviewed regularly and transparently, with religious and non-religious worldview organisations, teachers, and independent subject experts represented on an equal basis.</div>

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Act now: Help make Religious Education inclusive in Northern Ireland

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