The future of religious education in schools looks "bleak" unless the Government takes remedial action, a new report has warned.

The report by the National Association of Teachers of RE (NATRE) says that RE was already being marginalised as a result of Education Secretary Michael Gove's decision to leave it out of the English Baccalaureate (EBac).

RE has been a core subject for all pupils since 1870, but NATRE warned that it is "set to disappear" from the curriculum of many secondary schools.

Its survey of nearly 2,000 state maintained secondary schools found that a quarter are not providing statutory RE for 14 to 16-year-olds, a statistic that is expected to rise during the 2011/2012 academic year.

The report stated that entries to GCSE level RE have dropped by more than a third in academies and community schools in the last year.

In schools where entry levels fell, more than half attributed the drop to RE being excluded from the EBac.

Ed Pawson, Chair of NATRE, said, “GCSE Religious Studies is a subject that requires high standards of knowledge and evaluation of evidence.

"It has grown massively in popularity over recent years because students recognise it as a subject of significant relevance to the world they encounter.

"By excluding RS from the EBac Michael Gove is effectively squeezing it out of the curriculum in many of our schools across the country. This truly is a cruel blow.”

Other recent research has shown that application rates for secondary RE teacher training are down 25%, compared with geography, which has seen a drop of 9%, and history, which has seen an increase of 3%.

Analysis of Government data reveals that 862 state secondary schools entered no candidates for GSCE religious studies in 2010, compared with 137 for geography and 70 for history.

A further analysis reveals that 25% of academies without a religious character entered no pupils at all for an RE GCSE.

An early day motion calling for the inclusion of RE in the EBac has been signed by more than 100 MPs from across the political parties.

A petition by the RE:Act campaign making a similar call was signed by 130,000 people.

Mr Gove is expected to make an announcement on RE’s inclusion in the EBac by July 19.