The religious radicalisation of Britain's youth is a hot topic at the moment, with a highly-publicised spurt of young men and women leaving the country to fight with extremists abroad. But does this problem find its roots in our schools? And if so, could a greater focus on religious education help?
Image: Placard from an extremist demonstration in London.
Ed Pawson, the chairman of NATRE, stated at their recent conference that the development of 'religious literacy' in young people in the UK could help to make them less vulnerable to religious radicalisation. This is an important claim, since reports from the Department for Education and Ofsted have shown that the threat of radicalisation in UK schools is very real.
In December 2012, The Telegraph revealed a secret memo from the Department for Education, which accepted that tackling extremism in both state and private schools was proving to be a problem for education officials. The memo also highlighted concerns about 118 faith schools throughout the UK, claiming that students at these schools were at risk of being radicalised. These claims were made not only as a result of the lack of multi-faith teaching at the schools in question, but also due to the encouragement of pupils to remove themselves from mainstream society and reports that school governors may have links to known terrorist groups.