Religious leaders agreed on Wednesday that Christian and other faith schools should teach the tenets of Britain’s major religions in order to fight prejudice and promote harmony.

|TOP|Leaders of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities signed a declaration with the department of education urging such schools to teach not only their own religion but an awareness of other faiths.

Joint with the Department for Education and Skills, the declaration says that religious education enables pupils to "combat prejudice" and helps them develop respect and sensitivity to others.

The agreement commits faith schools to using the National Framework for Religious Education, drawn up in 2004, which encourages the teaching of the tenets of the five major religions in faith schools by the end of key stage three (age 14), but which is non-statutory.

"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 said. "We are fully committed to using the framework in developing the religious education curriculum for our schools and colleges."

Many religious schools already teach about faiths other than their own, but there is no legal requirement for them to do so. The statement released today says that religious education offers "opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development."

Religious education encourages pupils to develop their sense of identity and belonging and enables them to “flourish individually within their communities and as citizens in a pluralistic society and global community,” it said.

The former head of the Office of Standards in Education in England, David Bell, raised fears last year over what was taught in the growing number of independent Muslim schools, according to Britain’s domestic Press Association news agency.

|AD|Canon John Hall, chief education officer for the Church of England, admitted the declaration about inclusive teaching of other faiths could not be legally enforced. But he said that it carried a "very strong moral authority."

This was the first time the faith leaders had come together in such a way over this issue, making it a "significant moment" in education, he said.

While independent faith schools could continue to do what they liked in this respect, Canon Hall added that many of these also would be influenced by the moral authority of the faith leaders.

He said: "People widely misconceive faith schools as being socially divisive and segregationist. This statement has a very strong moral authority. Because most faith schools are voluntary aided schools, the governors currently determine their religious education syllabus. The governors must now listen to their faith leaders and make the syllabus more inclusive so that faith schools promote mutual understanding and respect."

However, secularists condemned the declaration. Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society, said: "This new announcement is merely an effort to counter accusations that single-faith schools are divisive and a menace to social cohesion.

"Simply devoting a few hours to talking about other religions does nothing to stop the real divisiveness of these schools," he stated.

The statement's signatories were the Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth, the Right Rev Kenneth
Stevenson; Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor; Jon Benjamin of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Munisha of the Buddhist Society; Sarah Lane of the Free Churches Association; Anil Bhanot of the Hindu Council; Kathleen Wood of the Methodist Church; Sir Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain and Indarjit Singh of the Network of Sikh Organisations.