UN Committee on Rights of the Child calls out religious bias in UK schools

The UK may appear like a more secular country than the US given its public religious apathy and growing lack of religiosity in society, but there is a far blurrier line between church and state on this sceptered isle.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recently slammed the UK's educational bias that favors religion. Humanists UK, which submitted evidence to a UN hearing on the subject, claims that the UK "is failing children through pervasive and discriminatory bias in favor of religions and religious believers in schools."

Much of the contention is reserved for the UK's counter-terrorism Prevent Strategy because it believes that the scheme targets Muslims, impinging on Muslim children's rights ("The Committee is deeply concerned about the chilling effect of counter-terrorism measures on the right of children to freedom of expression..."). This is perhaps fertile ground for debates about whether such targeting (think profiling) reflects a problem or exacerbates it.

That said, there are four other areas at which the report takes aim: collective worship, sectarian admissions, religiously-biased Religious Education (RE), and age-appropriate relationship and sex education (RSE).

Collective worship

Collective worship, in the UK, is a statutory requirement for schools such that “…each pupil in attendance at a community, foundation or voluntary school shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship.” It is already an unpopular component of daily education with parents, with poll results showing it is the least popular assembly activity. The government stipulates the following:

Collective worship in county schools and equivalent grant-maintained schools must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, though not distinctive of any particular Christian denomination.Religious Education and Collective Worship, government document.

The UN suggests that children under 16 be given a right to withdraw from collective worship, thus ensuring that young people have the freedom to exercise their own beliefs or non-beliefs without being compelled to participate in religious activities:

Repealing legal provisions for compulsory attendance in collective worship and establishing statutory guidance to ensure the right of all children, including children under 16 years of age, to withdraw from religious classes without parental consent;UN Committee report, available here.

Sectarian admissions

At present in the UK, some 34% of all schools are faith schools (37% of primary schools), with 98% of these faith schools being Catholic- or Church of England-run. This might be an anathema (or pipedream) to many in the US. Admission to any school is evaluated on admissions criteria, and for faith schools, at the top of the criteria list is practicing faith. Thus, you might not be able to get your child into your local school if you are not attending the correct church, leading to them having to go further afield to a non-denominational school. This in turn leads to local parents, or high-aspiration parents (who want their child to go to a particular school for perhaps academic reasons), attending church just so their child can attend that school.

The UN report advises the following:

Preventing the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admissions in England...

This is concise but clear advice.

Religiously biased RE

Although Northern Ireland has been singled out in the report, the RE curriculum has long been a subject for concern. Many have argued for broadening the remit to include more philosophy and moral teaching, as well as even more formally taking humanism into account (which it already has done to some extent). Many schools now label the subject Philosophy, Religion & Ethics (PRE).

The UN report advised...

...revising the religious education syllabus in Northern Ireland to include education on and respect for a diversity of religions.

Given the sectarian history in the country, this is perhaps unsurprising, where in the rest of the UK, schools have for some time been required to teach about a range of religions. However, the reality is often that faith schools, pressed for time in a packed timetable, and with the need to teach so much more about their own faith and traditions, often find other religions squeezed out of the annual timetable.

Age-appropriate RSE

Relationships and Sex Education, whatever its titular form, has long been a battleground involving religious entities. The current system means that some faith schools are able to use highly inappropriate material in RSE lessons. The UN's advice is both forceful and on the money:

Integrate comprehensive, age-appropriate and evidence-based education on sexual and reproductive health into mandatory school curricula at all levels of education and into teacher training, and ensure that it includes education on sexual diversity, sexual and reproductive health rights, responsible sexual behaviour and violence prevention, without the possibility for faith-based schools or parents to opt out of such education;

This doesn't leave many options for religious people to find loopholes. The UN seems to have struck a number of harmonious chords here with what many secularists in the UK have been arguing for some time.

One final stipulation is also worthy of note, concerning the controversial process of "conversion therapies," courses intended to stop gay people being gay. Schools are advised to

prohibit the promotion, facilitation and delivery of so-called “conversion therapies” aimed at changing the sexual orientation and gender identity of children, in line with its commitment made in 2018, with particular attention paid to the vulnerabilities of children who may be subject to such harm;

I will leave you with the statement from Humanists UK on the report and its findings:

"These concluding observations from the UN couldn’t be clearer: we have a serious problem in the UK that successive governments have been happy to ignore for years: the religious bias in our education system is now woefully out of step with international standards and commitments to the freedom of religion or belief. With the changing demographics of over half the population now having no religion—and this is even higher for young people—these issues simply cannot be ignored any longer.

"Therefore we will be calling upon governments across the UK to consider these recommendations seriously and take immediate steps to implement them. By doing so, we can ensure that children’s rights are fully respected, allowing every child to thrive and contribute to a society built on equality and respect for all."