Religious Education or Education about Religions? - Leah Selinger

The issue of religious education is one that crosses national and cultural boundaries, often raising highly emotive issues. At my infant school I remember two brothers who were kept out of assemblies by their parents, as they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their parents didn’t agree with the, slight, Church of England overtones that were often present in the hymns we sung. My parents didn’t seem to mind, I’m from a Jewish background, but that is the thing about religious education, it is not necessarily what gets taught, it is the way that it is taught that is so often disputed.

In Britain the issue over religious education has recently been bought to the public attention with the Labour governments’ plans to create more single faith schools, for Islamic, Jewish, Sikh, Greek Orthodox and Catholic communities, as part of the Specialist Schools Initiative. In England, of some 25,000 schools, there are around 7000 single faith schools, 589 of these are for secondary education. Of these, only 40 are non-Christian, and 32 are Jewish. It was only in September 2001 that the UK’s first Muslim state secondary school opened in Bradford. The new proposals aim to create at least 100 more religious schools to, “further promote diversity”. Plans have already been drawn up for 40 such schools.

Religious schools are allowed to give religious instruction in place of religious education. And while there is an emphasis on religious education being fairly balanced and objective, religious instruction can be indoctrinary and is focused on just the one single faith. This and the impact of groups such as the Church Schools Review Group, which heavily influence education legislation and actively seek the ‘rechristianising’ of schools, make it necessary to question the result that the new proposal might have. The riots and unrest in a number of northern cities in May, the emergence and electoral ‘success’ of racist political parties, as well as the prominence of race and immigration as front-line news over the past two years point to the growing racial tensions in the UK. A lack of an unbiased education about other faiths and culture will not help this situation.

The idea for this article came to me while working at an educational establishment in India that has religious overtones. It was sparked by a newspaper article that raised the question asked in the title of this piece, in relation to India. The fact that similar issues, over the place of religious education in the 21st century and the problems that a ‘religious’ education can cause, were being raised in countries with such different perspectives of religion in society, added to my interest.

One of the main social and political problems in India is the growing force of communalism. The strength of the Hindu Nationalists is growing daily, and Islam, Christianity and Sikhism are being forced to define their own identities more fully to combat the politico-social force that is ‘Hindutva’ -a Hindu nationalist term we can loosely translate as Hinduness. The issue being discussed in India is the extent to which the ‘saffronisation’ of education is taking place - saffron is the colour of the Hindu nationalist flag, thus the term Saffronisation’ is used to refer to the growth of Hindu nationalist ideals in other institutions. The National Council for Educational Research and training (NCERT) has come under fire in recent months for introducing religion to the classroom, where, since Independence in 1947, it was rarely seen. The NCERT justify their advice to incorporate religious teachings in the curriculum on the grounds that religious education provides students with a universal value system.

While the NCERT is promoting education about all religions, their basics and inherent values, they are also advocating teaching students that religion is the essential instruction of morals and values. When the government implementing these proposals is Hindu nationalist, it is important to question how neutral and unbiased the teaching will be. Here we can draw parallels with the situation in the UK, the influence of Hinduism in India and that of Christianity in the UK is making its impact on the education of the next generation, and we have to ask, what will this impact be?

My work as a volunteer at the Barli Development Institute for Rural Women (BDIRW) in Indore in Madhya Pradesh, central India, has given me an insight into a way that religious education is enacted in India. The Institute was established by the National Spiritual Assembly of Bahai's in India, in 1985, for the empowerment of rural and tribal women living in communities in Madhya Pradesh.

The BDIRW is a highly successful NGO, and has been recognised for its work in improving health and the environment by numerous international NGOs, such as UNESCO and UNICEF, as well as by the communities it serves. Immunisation levels and literacy rates have risen substantially in the rural villages the girls return to, and infant mortality and fatal illnesses have dramatically dropped. Whilst the Institute has recently gained independence from the Baha’i community the ideas regarding social, economic and spiritual development continue to be influenced by the Baha'i Faith's central belief in the unity and equality of all forms of faith, colour and gender, and the view that all people should work towards this ‘unity of humanity’. The Institute accepts young women from all faiths and does not preach to the trainees about the Baha’i faith. There is no encouragement to become Baha’i and all religions are recognised as equally valid in the eyes of the faith, yet there is a baha’i overtone in the lessons. Each lesson has a quote from the Baha’i scriptures, and while these are applicable to all religious beliefs, they are taught as Baha’i quotes which can apply to all religions. I am not suggesting that this is a negative thing; only pointing out that despite the centrality of the Baha’i teachings in the curriculum the Institute promotes itself as a non-proselytising organisation. The nature of the Baha’i faith, its acceptance of all religions and its generalised moral teachings mean that it remains inoffensive to the trainees, however, if the Institute was run by a Hindu or Islamic organisation in India, would it have the same scope?

It is this issue that is challenging both the UK and India today. While Indian culture is more orientated around a religious discourse, similar problems of race relations and disunity within local communities are occurring. The resurgence of religious education in our classrooms raises questions as to how religion is affecting our morals. Perhaps religion is becoming too moral - children are taught that their morals are correct, and others’ of another faith are not. Is there a difference between the ‘saffronisation’ of education in India and the ‘rechristianisation’ and ‘diversification’ of education in the UK?

While there are obvious differences in the way the two cultures regard religion, it being so much more intrinsic to Indian society than that of Britain. The fact remains that the new trends in religious education as religious instruction, not just secular informative education about the different world religions and religion as a part of any given society may be prone to breed negative diversity. With globalisation well and truly upon us we should not be narrowing our scope for knowledge, but broadening it - how else are we to understand and learn to accept other cultures as they start to (positively) affect our own. By creating the divisions within our schools are we telling our children “you are different to the other kids”?

A lot of questions and answers are not being looked at by UK and Indian governments, and others across the world. It isn’t just in these two countries that we see the issue of religion taking hold of communities. The current ‘war against terrorism’, has been, whether we like to admit it or not, to some extent created by the tensions between Islam and the other world religions.

The fact that we are starting to contribute to social tensions by institutionalising them seems too ridiculous, and yet it is happening. Racism in the global community, I believe, is partly due to religious difference, and to support that is to support segregation on the grounds of colour, class and creed. Religious education can be positive, but only if it is taught in a dominantly neutral way, accepting that any form of teaching is subject to some form of bias, it should be an integral part of every child’s curriculum. Education should be informative, not instructive. If someone wishes to embrace any faith or belief system they should be allowed to do so, but they should also respect others’ rights to do the same thing. If this was taught in schools across the globe perhaps (and this is a big perhaps) our world would be a much more peaceful and harmonious place in which to live.

Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/education/newsid_1166000/1166110.stm, Hindustan times: 28/5/01 "race riots in england"
29/5/01 "prejucie ghosts of the pasts" (articles), Guardian internet archive articles, ww.spiked-online.com/00000002Do8E.htm