Funding is required to ensure schools put in place “meaningful alternatives” to religious and moral education (RME) and religious observance (RO), secondary headteachers have said.
The call from School Leaders Scotland (SLS) comes as the Scottish government is considering changes to the law on RME and RO in schools, so that “due weight” is given to students’ views if parents exercise their right to withdraw them.
Graham Hutton, SLS general secretary, says school leaders support the changes - designed to bring alignment with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) - and believes the inclusion of young people’s views is a “positive step forward”.
‘Important role’ of RO and RME
However, he stresses that “both RO and RME play an important role in providing our young people with an understanding of what our multicultural society in Scotland is about”.
He also says that “a number of challenges” arise “from a possible large increase in withdrawal requests” - including that setting up alternatives to RO and RME would have cost implications.
“This is a resources issue and the dominating factor is going to be the need to find meaningful alternatives for young people at a time when resources are at a bare minimum,” says Mr Hutton.
He added that the demand for alternatives “could increase considerably”, depending on the number of pupils withdrawing from RME and RO.
SLS also warns that increased withdrawals from RME and RO could have implications for teacher numbers and could impact on teacher “morale” and a school’s “overall ethos and community”, as well as student attendance.
A student not attending might opt out of the lessons that follow “or even the rest of the day”, suggests Mr Hutton, which “would be very harmful to students’ attendance, wellbeing and achievement”.
More ‘tolerant and understanding school community’
Poor attendance has become a key issue for schools since the Covid pandemic. Scottish government figures show that just over 40 per cent of secondary students were persistently absent from school, missing at least 10 per cent of classes, in 2023-24. In 2018-19 just over 30 per cent of students were persistently absent.
Mr Hutton says “overall withdrawals are not common” and that parents are often persuaded to keep their children in RME and RO when it is explained that they “contribute strongly to a more tolerant and understanding school community”.
He makes his comments in response to a , which closed on 26 January.
The Scottish government is proposing making changes to the legislation on RO and RME in schools, in order to bring it into line with the UNCRC, which was incorporated into Scots law in 2024.
Proposed changes criticised for not going far enough
Parents have a right to withdraw their child from both RO and RME as a subject, without taking into account the views of the child.
The government, therefore, is proposing to amend legislation to “require due weight to be given to the students’ views when parents are exercising their right to withdraw their child from RO/RME”.
However, the changes would not give students the right to opt out independently and have been criticised by children’s commissioner Nicola Killean for failing to go far enough.
The commissioner’s office states, in its submission to the RME and RO consultation, that the changes would weaken parents’ rights without advancing children’s right; they would “create a new power for a school to decline a parental request to withdraw the child from religious observance on the basis of the school’s assessment of the child’s wishes”.
The also states: “Children should be able to independently exercise a legal right to withdraw from religious observance.
“We would urge the Scottish government to change these proposals.”
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