My contribution to the “national discussion” on Scottish education - of which the consultation ends on Monday 5 December - relates to specific issues around non-denominational religious and moral education (RME). This is an area in which I have been a teacher (since 1994), principal teacher and, since 2005, academic researcher and initial teacher educator.
Debates often coalesce around the naming of the subject, particularly the inclusion of philosophy in the subject title so that it becomes religious, moral and philosophical studies (RMPS) not just at certificate level but throughout the curriculum.
Arguing over the subject’s name is, however, really an exercise in rearranging deck chairs as an iceberg looms: the iceberg in question being the statutory framing for the subject, which is 150 years old.
Political and religious sensitivities (real or imagined) have stymied the development of this important subject area. For a long time, I felt Scotland was innovative in terms of approaches to RME. Indeed the 1972 Millar Report remains a visionary and remarkably prescient document. However, in recent years, work in other UK jurisdictions, particularly England and Wales, has shown a willingness to move things forward, perhaps highlighting a degree of stagnation in Scottish approaches to RME. I’m talking about the work of the Commission on RE in England and, in Wales, the move to “worldviews” approaches and the repeal of the right to conscientious withdrawal.
The current statutes for RME remain a reframing of the 1872 Education Act, which was designed to assuage Presbyterian concerns about state control of education, enshrining compulsory acts of worship and offering non-Presbyterian Christian parents a “conscience clause” by which they could protect their children from proselytisation. Can you perhaps see how anachronistic it is that we are still beholden to such statutes?
To my mind, these are the areas that need to be addressed:
1. The status of Christianity
The Curriculum for Excellence continued the “them and us” model of the 5-14 curriculum. Arguments that Christianity be the only mandatory area within RME were made in terms of cultural literacy, but I think the subject area has, as a result, continued to attract suspicions of confessionalism. Might cultural literacy be addressed in the wider curriculum? When about 70 per cent of young people self-identify as non-religious, is it helpful to have an apparent privileging of any one wisdom tradition? (It will be interesting, of course, to see if Scotland’s census echoes the reduction in people describing themselves as Christian in England and Wales in census figures published this week.)
2. The right of conscientious withdrawal
Perhaps Scotland can learn from Wales and repeal this? The existence of the conscience clause continues to perpetuate long-standing suspicions of proselytisation. It needs to go or be expanded to the entire school. This is quite apart from issues around whose conscience we are talking about and the lack of young people’s rational autonomy in the exercise of this parental right. It seems a little strange that subjects of much discussion within RME, such as Malala Yousafzai or Greta Thunberg, have exercised an autonomy not available to Scottish young people.
3. The mandatory nature of the subject
I was and remain bewildered by the pressures upon schools to expand core RME offerings to the age of 18. For me, having conscript 15- to 18-year-olds is a retrograde and counterproductive development. I cannot see benefits in this resurrection of 19th-century statutes.
4. Religious observance
The confusion around and conflation of RME and religious observance (RO) continues, particularly in the primary sector. The 2005 review of RO needed to go further and remove the title altogether. It’s time to consign RO to the history books, hopefully thereby uncoupling it at last from the subject area RME.
5. Recreate subject leadership posts for RME
As research I am involved in has shown, the move to faculties in the last 20 years has damaged subject status, staff and pupil wellbeing, careers prospects and pupil behaviour, among other areas. It is vital that specialists teach and visibly lead curricular areas.
While these issues remain unexamined and unchanged, it will be little surprise that RME will take steps to “sex itself up”. Sometimes this means departments may even downplay the religious aspect of the subject. In some cases, they can overcorrect, even showing antipathy to religion and Christianity in particular.
I don’t think RME is in good health. Entry numbers of Higher RMPS have declined. The impact of facultisation is evident. So, while we may have popular RE teachers and departments, there are many who are on their own and disappearing fast, in many cases only offering RME to S1-2 as part of a social subjects curriculum that they are not qualified to teach.
Getting back to my iceberg analogy, I’ve been shouting for about 28 years now that we’re heading towards one. I urge all involved in RME for whom this resonates to make their voices heard before the national discussion on Scottish education reform closes on Monday - it’s time to alter course.
Professor Graeme Nixon is a senior lecturer in education at the University of Aberdeen who previously worked as a teacher of religious and moral education. He tweets @GraemeNixon
