The question: Is multifaith religious education a failure?
Let's be clear: I'm writing this as someone who believes that a certain religion is true. But I'm also writing as a former religious education (RE) teacher who found no contradiction in teaching a number of world faiths.
When I was teaching religious education, students would regularly ask: "Is it true, miss?" Philip Barnes argues that contemporary RE presents all religions as equally valid, which disables teachers from even recognising that this question is an important one for pupils.
I would say he overstates the problem: I believe that most teachers do articulate the significant differences between religions, and that few students would say that RE plays these down. I also believe that teachers have developed ways of looking at the truth question that doesn't reduce RE to a tourist trip of lifestyle choices. We would be right to object to a version of RE that was effectively a visit to the spiritual supermarket, inviting pupils to browse the shelves picking up items that took their fancy and putting them in their basket of commitment.
Philip's alternative to "multifaith RE" seems to suggest that RE should help pupils decide between religions: a role which most RE teachers, and most religious believers, would say is not part of their brief. Pupils may in fact make decisions as a result of, among other things, their RE teaching, but teaching for that kind of commitment is not seen as an acceptable aim of a modern school without a designated religious character.
Philip's account fails to hit the spot because it doesn't acknowledge the deeper difficulty within our society: our lack of any form of public agreement about how we adjudicate between competing world views. It would be dishonest to expect teachers to teach that critical analysis will sort this out when it is blatantly obvious that in the real world, it doesn't.
He says that stressing the irreconcilable nature of competing truth claims between religions will do more to develop community cohesion that the current system. Common sense would suggest that even if handled with the greatest professional understanding and knowledge, with substantial support from local faith communities, the likely outcome is quite the reverse.
The bedrock for RE in local areas is the discussion and debate that takes place in each local authority's Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE). There, local faith representatives have constant dialogue over what the RE syllabus for local children should look like.
These SACREs must be doing something right: contrary to Philip's bleak picture, RE is an extremely popular subject. Rather than quote from a survey of schools in one county which showed (surprise, surprise) that students were bored in some RE lessons, I would point out that RE A-level entrants have risen for five years in a row by an average of 5% each year, while the number taking RE GCSE has risen every year for a decade.
Of course, I'm not saying RE is perfect. The RE Council has repeatedly called for significant investment in teacher education – both initial and in-service training – to help boost standards, and there are a number of areas of Barnes' research that could provide fertile ground for further work to help improve provision.
But his prognosis is far too bleak: RE is alive and kicking, is valued by students, and plays an important role in promoting respect for difference and diversity. Our young people appreciate the complex role that religion plays in this messy world, and good RE today helps them explore this.