IT HAS to be good news. This summer, 188,000 students sat a full-course Religious Studies GCSE. A further 280,000 sat the short-course GCSE in the subject. At A level, 21,200 students sat the examination, and a further 27,700 sat the AS (Advanced Subsidiary). So, overall this year, there were slightly more than half a million pupils sitting Religious Studies exam­inations.

There have been accusations that its new popularity is because Religious Studies is a soft option. Examiners and teachers suggest that this is not true, and their anecdotal evi­dence is backed up by a recent research study by the University of Durham, “Relative Dif­ficulty of Examinations in Dif­ferent Subjects”, which placed Religious Studies in the middle of the “hard-soft” scale, along with English Literature and History.

So why has this subject grown in popularity so much?

AFTER extensive lobbying, the first RS short-course GCSE was taken in June 1997. Since then, Religious Studies has moved rapidly from being a small Cinderella subject to one of the commonest qualifications.

The criteria for the short course emphasised consideration of ultimate questions rather than the biblical-studies and world-faiths ap­proach of the traditional full-course GCSE. It appears that student interest was fired by this change, and, within a few years, a consequent rapid increase in numbers was also apparent at A level.

Although the new short-course GCSE specifications build more directly on the Non-Statutory Framework for Schools, neverthe-less the content has moved even closer to a philosophy-and-ethics approach.

This rapidly had an effect on the A level. Before the establishment of the short-course GCSE, the most popular of the A-level sylla­buses had been one on Christian theology, con­taining papers on the Old and New Testa­ments, church history, and doctrine, and another on Christian philosophy and ethics.

These remained on the syllabus, but it was clear from early on that the interests of the majority of teachers and students were moving towards philosophy of religion and religious ethics — the grown-up versions of the ulti-mate questions study at GCSE.

The latest A-level specifications continue this trend. Many students planning to take medicine or law at university opt to follow a religious-ethics AS, which is seen as valuable preparation for their later studies.

The exam boards do not provide a break­down of examination entries by option, but experience and teachers’ comments suggest that approximately 90 per cent of A level RS students study both philosophy of religion and religious ethics; half the remainder study one or the other of these. Clearly, this reflects a dramatic fall in the numbers studying world faiths and biblical texts.

For many years, teachers have requested that the official name of the accreditation be changed from Religious Studies to Philosophy and Ethics, but these calls have always been rejected by the Government, on the grounds that RS is a subject in its own right, with its own objectives and criteria, and is not to be confused with Philosophy, which exists as a separate A level.

The new Pre-U (pre-university) qualifica­tion, which offers linear examinations at the end of a two-year course, and records results two grades above the A* at A level, offers a qualification in Philosophy and Theology, which provides a wide choice of philosophy, ethics, and biblical papers; but there are no options on world faiths.

Conversely, the newest RS syllabus, from the International Baccalaureate, is entirely a study of world religions, requiring a year covering three religions. Students must choose one out of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism; one out of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism; and one out of Bahá’í, Jainism, and Taoism. In the second year, the study of the two religions chosen from the “Big Six” is continued.

SO, is it, indeed, all good news?

It has to be welcome that the introduction of the GCSE short course and the resultant following rapid increase in numbers at A level has rescued RS from a being minority-interest subject. It might be wise, however, to consider the resultant impact on the subject area and on students’ knowledge.

Studying Philosophy of Religion and Reli­gious Ethics is demanding. In addition to con­sidering religious perspectives from Chris­tianity and other possible faiths, students must also examine secular views. In addition, pos­sibly owing to the origins of the Christian theology course, the bulk of the Christian philosophical study is Roman Catholic in na­ture, with little acknowledgement of Protestant philosophers and thinkers. Even in 19th- and 20th-century studies, there is little if any men­tion of people such as Kierkegaard, Schleier­macher, or Tillich.

Maintained schools using a Locally Agreed Syllabus will generally have followed a world-faiths approach to RE, in line with the Non-Statutory National Framework for RE up to the end of Key Stage 3 (aged 14). This com­prises “learning about religions and beliefs” and “learning from religions and beliefs”.

After KS3, however, the majority of stu­dents are es­sentially studying Philosophy and Ethics. Inevitably, their knowledge of world faiths re­mains at a fairly basic level, and they will have undertaken little or no textual study. Biblical exegesis is now essentially limited to some church schools. So, although Religious Studies is certainly recognised as an academic subject, it is not a study of the areas that might be ex­pected.

The implications of this change in what is studied are very significant. For example, uni­versity English departments have long be­moaned the problems students have when studying writers such as Chaucer and Milton without the necessary background knowledge of the Bible and Christian theology.

Teachers with academic qualifications in Philosophy, but who lack an understanding of Christian doctrine, often find difficulty in interpreting some of the philosophical and ethical theories. Their lack of study of exegesis adds to misunderstandings and misconcep­tions. For example, the import of the sixth commandment is quite different if it is mistranslated as “Do not kill” instead of “Do not commit murder.”

Moreover, the large number of graduates following subject-knowledge booster courses, such as those offered by the Culham Institute, Keswick Hall, Liverpool Hope, and the Uni­versity of East London, suggests that many of the university courses being followed are not fully preparing students to deliver RE to younger-age pupils. The effect of studying what is, in essence, Philosophy and Ethics in schools over the past 13 years, is now reflected in the students who are entering teaching.

This change comes also at a time when the National Framework is encouraging schools to offer more than the Big Six world faiths, in order to reflect diversity within faiths and con­tribute to community cohesion. Many teachers face difficulty in teaching this ex­panded group. There are further concerns about the lack of accuracy and misrepresen­tation in many published materials, high­lighted in the 2010 Warwick report. These inaccuracies are not only offensive and un­professional, but mis­inform both students and teachers.

We should certainly celebrate this sum­mer’s examination results. And we should celebrate the initiative of the GCSE short course, and the huge impact this has had on the subject area. While many of the more “trad­itional” subjects face difficulty in main­taining their examina­tion entry numbers, RS does not. For example, this summer there were 196,000 entries for GCSE Geography, com­pared with 468,000 for Religious Studies.

Nevertheless, we do need to consider the dramatically changing nature of the subject area. We need to address the continued short­age of qualified RE teachers, and consider what might be done to recruit more students with wider qualifications.

And we have to question seriously whether there is a need to change what is taught to re­flect more the religio-historical traditions of the UK and, perhaps most importantly, the in­creasingly diverse religious communities in this country.

Jon Mayled has been Chief Examiner for Reli­gious Studies at Entry, GCSE, and A level. He is now a writer and consultant. A fuller version of this article will shortly be published by the Cul­ham Institute on www.reonline.org.uk.