A spokesman for the British Humanist Association said: “We welcome the Department for Education acceptance that schools need to teach not just about religions as part of RS but also about non-religious worldviews such as humanism but we fear, as a result of the Secretary of State’s original error, that many schools will continue to assume that delivering the GCSE will meet their legal obligations.
Schools must teach pupils that Britain is a Christian country and are entitled to prioritise the views of established religions over atheism, the Education Secretary has said.
Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, today publishes new guidance to non-faith schools which makes clear that they do not need to give “equal parity” to non-religious views.
It comes after humanists won a landmark High Court victory which found that the Education Secretary had unlawfully excluded atheism from the school curriculum.
Mrs Morgan is concerned that humanists are using the courts as part of a “creeping ratchet effect” which will ultimately see primary schools forced to teach children about atheism.
The new guidance states that there is “no obligation for any school to give equal air time to the teaching of religious and non-religious views” or even cover atheism during GCSE religious studies lessons.
However the guidance suggests that non-religious views can be taught in other lessons, a decision described as “significant” by the British Humanist Association.
It comes after a major inquiry into the place of religion in modern society concluded that Britain is no longer a Christian country and should stop acting as if it is.
The two-year commission, chaired by the former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss and involving leading religious leaders from all faiths, called for public life in Britain to be systematically de-Christianised.
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