Religious Education a Requirement for England Primary Schools

December 11, 2003

Source: Yahoo! News

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&ncid=1504&e=17&u=/afp/20031211/ts_afp/britain_religion_islam_031211175121

On December 11, 2003 Yahoo! News posted an Agence France Presse article that reported, "[I]n Southall's Featherstone, like in every other primary school in England, religion is a subject taught along with others since a 1944 education law. 'Each school must by law teach religious education, religion has to be part of school,' explained the school's headteacher, Gerry Curran. And the subject causes no problems, he said, with the parents of only three of the 600 children in the school having expressed reservations. 'The 1944 education Act allows parents to withdraw their children from religious education but it's not the case here,' he added...The approach has also changed from teaching religious practice to teaching about religion, said Curran. 'We teach here for example to children about the holy books, the main leaders, the places of worship of the different faiths, we teach about the rites of initiation of the different faiths.' The classes teach about the similarities in the world's religions, said Surinder Lall, the school's religious education coordinator...In the capital, where 47 percent of children attending school are from minorities, some 58 percent of people consider themselves Christian, 8.5 percent Muslim, four percent Hindu, 2.1 percent Sikh and 1.4 percent Jewish."