By Terry Vanderheyden
LONDON, February 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – State-run religiously-affiliated schools must now teach students about all religions in a bid to “combat prejudice,” the Times on Line reports.
A National Framework for Religious Education statement by the Department for Education and Skills has been endorsed by leaders of several major UK religious groups including Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops. The statement mandates that religious schools teach the tenets of all major world faiths.
“We believe that schools with a religious designation should teach not only their own faith but also an awareness of the tenets of other faiths,” the statement says. “We are fully committed to using the framework in developing the religious education curriculum for our schools and colleges.”
Education Secretary Ruth Kelly said that the best faith schools promote tolerance and inclusion. Approximately 7,000 of 22,000 government-funded schools are faith schools, the majority Anglican, with the remainder mostly Roman Catholic. The Right Rev Kenneth Stevenson, Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster were co-signatories to the statement.