More than 50 state schools have cancelled bible based education in school hours since 2011, with a lack of teaching volunteers and decline in parental support cited as the main reasons.
Rationalist David Hines has questioned state schools about their religious instruction programmes under the Official Information Act, and plans to create a public database of the findings.
A member of the Secular Education Network, Hines is against religion being taught in publicly funded schools.
The initial results from his survey show that 56 schools have stopped religious education since 2011. Of the 1429 schools that responded, 38 per cent have held some kind of religious instruction during school hours this year.
Another 58 per cent either had no religious instruction, or held it at lunchtime or after school. The remaining 4 per cent had not yet decided.
Some schools said increasing numbers of children were being pulled from classes, while others couldn’t fit the Bible in Schools programme into their stretched curriculums.
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