WASHINGTON, USA - The US National Bible Week kicked off Sunday with sponsoring ministries taking on the growing Christian trend of public advertising campaigns to promote the week.

|PIC1|The Bible Literacy Project and the National Bible Association announced a national public service billboard campaign involving 5,000 billboards that say "an educated person knows the Bible."

"We have a tremendous disconnect in public school education," said Chuck Stetson, chairman of the Bible Literacy Project. "On the one hand, national surveys show that virtually all educators recognise that knowing the Bible is key to understanding English literature as well as art, music, history and culture. However only 8 percent of public schools teach about the Bible."

Although Scripture or Christian teachings is increasingly being ruled out in public schools, the Bible Literacy Project published national reports that revealed 98 percent of high school English teachers and 100 percent of university professors agreed that students need to know the Bible in order to be well educated.

Professors surveyed were from such prominent universities as Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford. They listed more than 60 books taught in college which require knowledge of the Bible.

Nearly all high school English teachers said Bible knowledge gives a distinct academic advantage to students in studying English and 90 percent said it was critical for a good education but that today's students are "clueless, stumped, and confused."

Another Bible Literacy Project report included a Gallup Poll of teens, showing that students do not know enough about the Bible to properly understand British and American literature or the Bible's impact on culture.

"Our goal is that everyone should read the Bible," said Peter Giersch, president of the National Bible Association.

The US National Bible Week directs the public not only to read the Bible but also the research conducted in the last few years.

The US National Bible Week is from 19-26 November.