Over the border in England (a big hello to my English readers!) the battle for maintaining Religious Education in schools is hotting up. A while back the government decided that the proposed English Baccalaureate should not include RE as a subject. It’s been a few years since I was in school but I am led to believe that the EBacc is similar to, but will not replace, the A level (at which I struggled so much all those years ago). RE will still be a subject offered at A level, so anyone wanting to study it will be free to do so.

Anyway, back to the battle of the Bacc – as they wouldn’t say at the News of the World any longer. According to BRIN those protesting the government’s plans have been mightily cheered up by a newly released opinion poll. The ComRes poll was commissioned by Premier Christian Media Group (there’s a clue in the title about which side of the argument they’re on) and finds that 88% of people sampled believed that learning about different faiths and cultures in Britain is important and that not doing so would lead to increased intolerance in our society. A clear sign, then, that a big majority of British people want religion to be taught at school. Take that, you pesky secularists!

What they didn’t do in the above poll, however, was to test RE’s popularity against other subjects. Doh! When this is done things look a little different. In a recent YouGov poll people were asked to rank the importance of 20 subjects at GCSE level. RE came out at … errr … 16th – just above Latin, media studies, dance and drama. The subjects that topped the poll were maths, English, science, modern languages and history/geography – as luck would have it, the same subjects included in the EBacc. So the British people’s verdict? RE is important but not that important. Could this be another example of the church using only those stats favourable to their cause and ignoring the rest?

But what do I know – I have neither an O nor an A level in the subject.

Any thoughts?


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