HC Deb 02 May 1989 vol 152 c13
10. Mr. Janner

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received concerning the provision of non-Christian religious teaching as part of the national core curriculum.

Mrs. Rumbold

All maintained schools must provide religious education but it is not part of the national curriculum. The content of religious education is for local determination.

Mr. Janner

Is the Minister aware that parents who belong to minority faiths are increasingly concerned at what they feel to be inadequate provision for worship and education in their faiths where there is a substantial number of children of a particular faith in a school? Does she recognise that this anxiety has increased since the Education Reform Act 1968 and is shared by parents of the Hindu, Moslem, Jewish and other religions? Is she proposing to do anything as a result of the representations that she has received to meet these concerns?

Mrs. Rumbold

Certainly. We have taken careful note of the various representations that have been made to us. In terms of the act of worship, of course, the provision for parents to he allowed to withdraw their children remains as it was under the Education Act 1944. It may help the hon. and learned Gentleman if I say that not every act of worship in a county school will have to be either wholly or mainly broadly Christian in character, provided that the majority of acts of worship are. The head will have to take into account the family background of the pupils concerned when deciding on the precise nature of worship to be provided. As I have said, parents still have the option to withdraw their children if they so wish.

Miss Emma Nicholson

Does my hon. Friend not agree that teaching Christianity properly within the core curriculum provides a foundation for the teaching of comparative religion and indeed the degree subject of theology taught in many universities uses Christianity as the foundation and brings in other religions in the comparative framework? In that context, does she not agree that it is proper that Her Majesty's inspectors should monitor the teaching of religious education in the core curriculum?

Mrs. Rumbold

It is certainly right that, as my hon. Friend says, religious education should be monitored by Her Majesty's inspectors when they are looking at what is happening in the basic teaching of religious education. It is also right that religious education should refleect the central place of Christianity in our religious traditions. But the Act requires that local syllabuses should take account of the teaching and practices of all the principal religions in Great Britain. I hope that that will go some way towards answering my hon. Friend's question.