The UK government has been urged to launch a national plan to “prioritise” the teaching of Religious Education (RE).
The Religious Education Council of England and Wales (REC) and the National Association for Teachers of RE (NATRE) are calling for a “fairer allocation of resources to the subject” and the recruitment of more RE teachers.
The number of RE teachers nationwide has stalled at around 16,200 since 2011.
Deborah Weston OBE, Chair of the RE Policy Unit, said: “Poor quality, tokenistic RE taught by non-specialists without subject training has a knock-on effect on not just our communities, but the depth and quality of a young person’s education.”
News of the campaign came as Catholic state and independent schools across the UK announced “excellent” GCSE results.