Religious Education gives distorted view

"A major new report from Ofsted, the schools inspection body, says that the Religious Education guidelines published in 2004 have failed to make the subject relevant to modern life and don't properly explore the issues. The report says that pupils should be given a more sophisticated understanding of religion's role in the world. Teaching should take a "warts and all" approach that acknowledges that religion can be a force for evil as well as good. "Pupils should be taught that religion is complex," says the report, "and should be given the opportunity to explore that ambiguity."
The report, Making Sense of Religion, found the teaching of Christianity was "often much less rigorous and more fragmented" than carefully sequenced units of work on other faiths. "Work on specific aspects of Christianity, such as the life of Jesus or the Bible, is isolated from an investigation of the religion itself." GCSE syllabuses paid little attention to issues related to religion's role and significance in contemporary Britain.

[...]

When the guidelines were first published by the QCA, the NSS condemned them as "a charter for indoctrination". We said at the time that they did not explore all sides of religious influence in the world, bad and good, but were more like a tool for proselytisers in schools. Now it seems Ofsted has come to the same conclusion."

secularism.org.uk Fri, 29 Jun 2007