Parents pulling students out of religious education over Islam lessons, study finds

A MAJORITY of parents who requested to withdraw pupils from religious education classes did so on concerns over Islam, a study has found.

The study carried out by Liverpool Hope University and published in the British Journal of Religious Education showed that two thirds of requests were from parents who did not want their children to learn about Islam or visit mosques.

About 7 per cent were for concerns over Hinduism and Buddhism, 6 per cent for Christianity, 3.6 per cent for Judaism and 16 per cent for other reasons.

According to the law, parents are allowed to withdraw children from RE classes, but about 71 per cent of teachers interviewed for the study felt it was time the law was scrapped.

Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, an activist group which records and measures anti-Muslim incidents in Britain, told The Independent: “We have been hearing about cases where parents are pulling their children out of mosque visits as part of religious education since they do not want them to be near a mosque.

“This has been taking place over the last five years and shows that there are parents who have fears or dislike Islam. This is also concerning, since what kinds of views are their children being exposed to? It does not bode well for the future of people and communities living together”.

Last year, teachers warned that parents were abusing their right to withdraw children from religious education due to their prejudices. At the time, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain told the Thurrock Gazette that “in an ever increasingly diverse society, it is more crucial than ever to learn about each other’s faith and cultures, and help foster better understanding between communities."

“In particular, as hostility towards Muslim communities remains widespread and more young people are brought up with inaccurate views about Muslims, we believe visits to mosques are an important way to help resolve misunderstandings,” the spokesperson said.