The Accord Coalition has welcomed a report published yesterday by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education, which highlights the potential for good Religious Education to contribute to stronger community relations and recommends ways that the subject might be strengthened.
The report comes after years of neglect for the subject, including RE GCSE not being included in the Department for Education’s English Baccalaureate (a key performance indicator launched in 2010); RE being excluded from the government’s 2011-2013 review of the school curriculum; a reduction in funding for RE teacher training and an increase in the number of schools not providing pupils with RE, especially at Key Stage Four.
The report highlights various weaknesses in government support for the subject, including support for curriculum design and monitoring by local authorities, and has called for improved training for teachers. It also argues there is ‘insufficient evidence’ on which to evaluate how schools promote better community relations since Ofsted’s duty to inspect school’s contribution towards community cohesion was removed in 2012 – a measure Accord and its supporters in Parliament actively opposed.
Accord Chair, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said: ‘The connection between religious knowledge and communal cohesion has been ignored for too long. Well-taught RE is one of the building blocks of a diverse society at ease with itself, and this report is a wake-up call to action.
‘Michael Gove committed a grievous error when he abolished the remit of Ofsted to inspect schools on how they promote community cohesion. He should reinstate it without delay. He should also review the statuary arrangements for RE and ensure that it is made part of a national curriculum entitlement for all pupils, to ensure that children of modern multi-belief Britain understand each other’s traditions and can better develop common values’.
