Parents are pulling their children out of school religious education lessons because they do not want them taught about Islam, the Church of England said yesterday.
Some, Church officials said, hope to shield their children from learning about any faith but Christianity, and others have a particular intention to keep children from any knowledge of Islam.
They pointed towards far right political groups and some minority faith sects as activists who are trying to ‘exploit’ the legal right of parents to withdraw their children from school RE.
CofE leaders called for the right of withdrawal to be repealed and for RE to become a compulsory part of school timetables to encourage pupils to learn to live with others from different backgrounds.
The accusation against parents who remove children from RE classes comes against a background of intensifying arguments about the future of religious education teaching.
The subject is not part of the compulsory National Curriculum, and is, alongside sex education, the only subject from which parents can withdraw pupils.
CofE school inspection chief Derek Holloway said: ‘Through RE teacher social media forums and feedback from our RE advisers I am aware that some parents have sought to exploit the right to withdraw children from RE lessons.
‘This is seemingly because they do not want their children exposed to other faiths and world views, in particular Islam. Anecdotally, there have also been some cases in different parts of the country of parents with fundamentalist religious beliefs also taking a similar course.
‘This is not confined to any one particular religion or area of the country.’
Mr Holloway added: ‘To enable all to live well together there is a need for all pupils from all backgrounds to receive a broad and balanced curriculum that includes high quality RE.
‘Sadly, and dangerously the right of withdrawal from RE is now being exploited by a range of interest groups often using a dubious interpretation of human rights legislation. The right of withdrawal from RE now gives comfort to those who are breaking the law and seeking to incite religious hatred.’
School RE lessons are supposed to teach children not just about Christianity but to give them a background on the beliefs and history of all the major faiths.
Parents have a legal right to remove their children from RE under a 1998 education law.
The CofE, which has 4,700 schools including 200 secondary schools, aims to promote ‘deep respect for the integrity of other traditions’ in RE.
Mr Holloway said the subject ‘does have a contribution to make to combatting extremism and to community cohesion, but these are not its core purpose nor its main aims.’
He said the teaching of RE should not be confused with the daily act of worship which schools are required to offer to pupils. In most schools this is a Christian assembly, and parents are entitled to withdraw their children from the act of worship.
There are no figures on how many parents remove their children from RE classes, although CofE officials said the figure is thought to be small. The subject is popular at GCSE, with more than 250,000 children taking the exam at 16.
Critics of religious education said parents should continue to be able to remove their children from classes.
Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said: ‘The fundamental problem is that RE is a confused subject area, still sometimes taught in a biased or partisan way.
‘If the subject was reformed to be genuinely educational and non-partisan study of religious and non-religious worldviews, the right to withdraw may no longer be necessary. But until such time, the right of withdrawal is required to protect parental rights and freedoms.’