Recently the Department of Education published proposals for a new syllabus for Religious Education. in Northern Ireland. The new proposals included, for the first time, a module on “other world faiths”. They also acknowledged the benefit to be gained from teaching children a variety of world faiths: “…in order to come to a fuller understanding of the world in which we live and the people who make up this world, it is proper that the study of other cultures and belief systems should be encouraged.” However with the exception of some statements such as this the proposals were very unsatisfactory when viewed from the perspective of someone who does not subscribe to the “four main churches”.
Both the National Spiritual Assembly and the Bahá'í Council for Northern Ireland submitted responses to the proposals. The Council response focussed on three main areas. The first related to an analysis by the Working Party that prepared the proposals that “teaching other world faiths confuses children”. The analysis appears to be based on a flawed interpretation of limited research and is totally at odds with the approach to Religious Education that is being developed in the rest of the UK.
The second main focus of the Council response was the way the syllabus was constructed in two parts: “Within a Christian-centred Core Syllabus for Religious Education, units of study should be included, at an appropriate stage, as an introduction to world faiths other than Christianity.” The syllabus is structured in a way that accentuates the difference between Christianity and other religions rather than identifying some of the commonalities. Indeed, rather than educating children to be able to deal constructively with religious diversity in society, the syllabus actually accentuates a concept of division in society.
Finally the Council response highlighted the lack of integration between the RE syllabus and other parts of the curriculum in other subject areas. Essentially the syllabus reads as an exclusive Christian syllabus with the token addition of a single module in the post-primary school on other world faiths. In a society that has such a history of sectarianism a syllabus such as this will only serve to increase religious discrimination. We can only hope that the syllabus will be substantially re-written.
The full Council response to the proposals is available on the web.
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