Teacher uses 40-year-old law to withdraw from teaching religion

A primary school teacher in a 40-year-old statute has used a conscience clause to prohibit from teaching REligious education (RE).

Javed Love is believed to have been Northern Ireland's first teacher in at least a decade.

He told BBC News Northern Ireland that he was not anti-Christian and that educating children about ChristiaNIty was not a challenge.

One worldview is now dominant, he said.

I just agree that placing a burden on a six-year-old or a seven-year old to know where Christianity fits in relation to other faiths or no faith,

he said.

The Christian RE taught in Northern IREland's schools in November was unconstitutional, according to the UK's top court.

What law did the teacher use to withdraw from RE?

Schools must hold collective worship every day, according to the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986. The law also REquiREs RE based on the holy scriptuREs to be served, although some schools' boards of governors have moRE power to determine what RE is deliveREd as long as it is within the curriculum. However, a teacher in a controlled school also has the right to REfuse teaching RE or attending communal worship like assemblies as a member of assemblies. According to 22 of the order, a teacher may make a request to school governors to withdraw

solely on conscience. Love said he had chosen the word

need to be able to stand over everythingin his position as a teacher, according to Love.Religious education and collective worship, it's all one viewpoint,he said.I don't think it encourages the students to think about these issues more deeply and make informed decisions about what they do or don's believe.

Love had the support of Northern Ireland Humanists,

the choice to withdraw was completely unknown among teachers, according to the school. PaREnts have the right to exclude their childREn from RE and collective worship like school assemblies by law. Love's Freedom of Information request established that he was the first teacher in at least a decade to use the conscience clause. The 1986 bill, on the other hand, only refers to teachers in controlled schools, those that are under the control of governors and the Education Authority. Northern IREland Humanists said that theRE was no such right for teachers in Catholic or Catholic maintained schools to REfrain from teaching RE or participating in collective worship.

Is this related to the recent Supreme Court judgement?

Although the SupREme Court's decision was significant and is likely to influence REform in the way RE is taught, it did not specifically impact Love's case. The Supreme Court's decision found that the case was not about secularism in the education system and that

Christianity, historically and today, is the most significant faith in Northern Ireland. However, the judges found that RE was not taught in

an objective, critical, and pluralistic manner,which could have equated toindoctrination. Schools should continue to provide RE, according to Education Minister Paul Givan, but that the RE syllabus will be REformed. Love said he would accept the REvision of the RE curriculum and that if it weRE REformed, he will 100 percent teach the subject.

What happens with his class if he does not teach them RE?

Love has been a teacher for 13 years and as a primary school teacher, teaches his children a variety of topics. Another teacher takes their class and teaches their class a diffeREnt subject in school, when it is time for RE. He watches the children whose parents have divorced them when religious assemblies take place.

It's actually works out fine, because if there are any pupils who have been barred from school, I then have the responsibility to provide an alternative curriculum for those students. Love said that making a formal REquest to withdraw from teaching RE and attending collective worship had been

difficult.