Written evidence submitted by Humanists UK

About Humanists UK

  1. At Humanists UK, we want a tolerant world where rational thinking and kindness prevail. We work to support lasting change for a better society, championing ideas for the one life we have. Since 1896, our work has been helping people be happier and more fulfilled. By bringing non-religious people together we help them develop their own views and an understanding of the world around them. Together with our partners Humanist Society Scotland, we speak for 100,000 members and supporters and over 100 members of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. Through our ceremonies, pastoral support, education services, and campaigning work, we advance free thinking and freedom of choice so everyone can live in a fair and equal society.
     
  2. We have a long history of work in education, children’s rights, and equality, with expertise in the ‘religion or belief’ strand. We have been involved in policy development around the school system and curriculum for over 70 years. We also provide materials and advice to parents, governors, students, teachers and academics, for example through our Understanding Humanism website and our school speakers programme. We are an active member of many organisations working in education in the UK, including the Religious Education Council of England and Wales (REC), of which we are a founding member; the Sex Education Forum; the PSHE Association; and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE).

 

Summary

 

  1. Faith schools are permitted to discriminate to varying extents in their recruitment and employment policies. Applicants can be rejected and staff barred from promotion if they are not of the ‘right’ religion, or of no religion. In some faith schools staff can even be dismissed if their behaviour outside school is deemed ‘incompatible’ with the school’s religion. As a result, non-Christian teachers find that their career prospects are significantly reduced.
     
  2. We oppose religious discrimination in teacher recruitment and retention policies in faith schools, primarily for moral reasons, but also because such policies are out of step with the demographics of families and the workforce and so contribute to poor staff retention and a diluted applicant pool.
     
  3. Furthermore, requirements for non-religious teachers in faith schools to uphold the faith ethos contribute to low morale and poor retention in this sector.
     
  4. Northern Ireland has recently taken steps to abolish exemptions to general employment law for teachers. England should now follow suit.
     
  5. Recommendation: the Education Committee recommends that the UK Government legislates to remove the ability of faith schools in England to discriminate on religious grounds in the recruitment and retention of teachers, unless it can be demonstrated that there is a genuine occupational requirement for a teacher to have a particular religion.

 

Religious discrimination in teacher recruitment and retention

 

  1. Approximately one third of state schools in England are legally registered with a religious character, commonly known as faith schools. There are primarily three models of faith school: voluntary controlled (VC), Foundation, and voluntary aided (VA). Faith Academies that have converted from maintained schools will generally have retained either the VC, Foundation, or VA model that they had prior to conversion, whereas for the purposes of employment, faith Free Schools follow the VA model.

 

  1. On top of that, Academies and Free Schools can also have a ‘faith ethos’ while not being designated with a religious character. There are no official statistics as to how many such schools there are but as more and more schools of no religious character get subsumed into Christian multi-academy trusts, it may be as many as 1,000.
     
  2. Schools in the VA model can use a religious test in appointing, remunerating, and promoting all teachers, even where a genuine occupational requirement (GOR) cannot be demonstrated. (They can also religiously discriminate in appointing non-teaching staff if a genuine occupational requirement (GOR) is demonstrated.) Teachers can be disciplined or dismissed for conduct which is ‘incompatible with the precepts’ of the school’s religion.
     
  3. Schools in the VC model, and Foundation faith schools, can use a religious test in appointing, remunerating, and promoting a fifth of teachers, again even where a GOR cannot be demonstrated (and also in appointing non-teaching staff if a GOR is demonstrated).

 

  1. Faith ethos Academies and Free Schools can use GORs when, for example, appointing senior staff. They cannot discriminate on the basis of religion more generally.
     
  2. It is worth noting at the outset that the NUT and ATL teaching unions previously adopted UK-wide policy against faith-based discrimination in teacher employment, beyond just GORs. Since then the two unions have merged into the National Education Union (NEU). The NEU is also a member of the Accord Coalition, which campaigns on such matters in England and Wales.

 

  1. There are two key reasons to oppose the current law on religious discrimination for teachers: it is a matter both of morality, and of equality law. Furthermore, given the current recruitment crisis in the teaching profession, such discrimination restricts workforce fluidity – we have case studies that demonstrate this.

 

  1. First, the moral argument: it is simply unfair for all positions in certain publicly funded institutions to be preferentially available to people of faith, unless there is a clear reason why having a faith is absolutely necessary to the job on offer. For example it might be possible to demonstrate that, to maintain a faith ethos, the head teacher (who has a duty to lead the school and set the tone for the rest of the staff), or teachers of (confessional) Religious Education, or a few staff with particular pastoral duties (including Chaplains) need to be committed to certain beliefs and values to conduct these roles. If so, in such cases, religious candidates are necessarily better equipped for those roles than someone with similar (secular) qualifications but who does not share the faith of the institution, and there is an argument that the posts should be reserved for, or preferentially awarded to, those who meet both the religious and non-religious criteria rather than those who do not. Even so, this does not answer the question of who ought to be appointed in cases where the candidate with the right religious credentials has lower qualifications or meets fewer of the secular criteria.

 

  1. Therefore, if the requirement for a candidate to have a faith amounts to little more than ‘we simply prefer people who are more like us’ then it is discriminatory and wrong – it means that well qualified individuals are less likely to be employed, promoted, or remunerated on irrelevant grounds and, since these decisions have real implications for the ability of some teachers to secure employment, has non-negligible implications for the careers and, ultimately, the wellbeing of those teachers. Furthermore, because the irrelevant grounds in play relate to the identity and deeply held beliefs of rejected job candidates, they are something that they are not in a position to alter (nor would it be reasonable to expect them to do so, not least because this would amount to an infringement of a basic right to freedom of religion or belief).
     
  2. The second argument relates to equality law. As noted, current statute law in England and Wales allows some faith schools to require all teaching staff to be of a certain religion. Indeed, explicit permission to do so is written into the Equality Act 2010 which grants an exemption for religious discrimination that is carried out in line with the School Standards and Framework Act (1998).

 

  1. However, for the time being at least, the UK is also bound by the European Employment Directive which states that employers, including schools, may only discriminate against employees on the basis of religion or belief where there is a GOR that such discrimination occurs.

 

  1. So, this might mean that a teacher of religion in a religious school may need to be of the same religion as their school, but not a PE, maths, or science teacher. Unfortunately, the European Employment Directive has been incorrectly transposed into UK law with respect to employment in English and Welsh faith schools. The exception written into the Equality Act is incompatible with the Directive because it does not restrict discrimination to those cases where a GOR can be demonstrated, and therefore has the effect of licensing an unlawful practice.
     
  2. Of course, individual teachers who have been discriminated against in the recruitment process for a job where religion did not constitute a GOR may (for the time being at least) still take a case against the individual school or trust responsible via the tribunal process and, on the basis of the European Employment Directive, could still be successful.

 

  1. This is because the European Employment Directive prohibits all employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of their religion or belief, except where there is a GOR:

 

‘[B]y reason of the nature of the particular occupational activities concerned or of the context in which they are carried out, such a characteristic constitutes a genuine and determining occupational requirement, provided that the objective is legitimate and the requirement is proportionate.’[1]

 

  1. However, now that the UK has left the EU, this route could be closed. Under the terms of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (as of April 2023 awaiting Report Stage in the House of Lords, having passed through the Commons), the Directive will cease to apply in the UK unless it is explicitly retained by the UK Government. While the Government has claimed that it does not plan to ‘water down’ the standards of workers’ rights[2], there has not yet been an explicit commitment to retain the Directive in domestic legislation. Therefore teachers may soon have no recourse to appeal against non-GOR discrimination on faith (or lack thereof) grounds in faith schools.
     
  2. Not all religious schools make use of the domestic-level permissions they have been granted to discriminate in their selection of teaching staff. But some schools regularly go way beyond the bounds of the GOR and appoint a very high proportion of their teachers on religious grounds. The Catholic Education Service (CES) in particular tells the English and Welsh schools it oversees (amounting to around 10% of the total number of schools) that they can and should attempt to discriminate in this way in the appointment of every teacher.[3]

 

  1. Without the systematic removal of discriminatory employment practices in cases where there is no GOR for a candidate to be religious, an increasing number of non-religious teachers, as well as those who have a faith but do not share the beliefs of their local schools, will continue to be unfairly shut out of a significant proportion of public-sector jobs. We think this is wrong and will continue to advocate for the rights of these teachers until this situation changes.
     

Faith schools and demographics of the workforce

 

  1. We have argued that current laws permitting faith-based discrimination in teacher employment should be abolished. However, while some faith schools do make full use of their ability to discriminate in this manner, simple local population demographics can mean that for many other faith schools to do so would be wholly counterproductive to establishing a sufficiently wide pool of applicants for vacancies.
     
  2. The British Social Attitudes survey reports that more than half of the population (53%) has no religion. In the 18-24 age group (where most trainee teachers will sit) this is even greater: 68% have no religion, 18% are Christian, and just 0.7% are Anglican.[4] Furthermore, over half (53%) of the teacher workforce in England is under 39, and the workforce is getting younger every year.[5] Other surveys have suggested that already 61 per cent of teachers consider themselves to belong to no religion.[6]

 

  1. As a result, it is perhaps unsurprising that despite the barriers to their employment exploited by some faith schools, thousands of teachers with no religion are still commonly found in faith schools across England.
     
  2. However, once a teacher with no religion is ‘through the door’, the policies and ethos of faith schools contribute to poor retention, as it becomes clear to the teacher that they must either lie about their religious observance, or fall foul of disciplinary procedures for manifesting their non-religious beliefs. For example, we have recently been contacted by a teacher recounting the following experience at a Catholic faith school:
     

‘Despite being an atheist physics teacher, I was told to produce a presentation for pupils to the effect that “all religion is good”. Clearly that is not the case… I produced a presentation which started off with something along the lines of pointing out that religion does some good things, and asking students to come up with five things that religion does or has done that are good. I then went on to say that religion is not always good, and gave some examples…

 

‘The effect of my presentation is that I was summoned to the head teacher’s office and told that my action was “actively going against my employer”… I was told that I was in breach of contract for saying something negative about the Catholic church…

 

‘The head told me that there was no point in going through with any disciplinary procedures because I was already leaving, but she was half in mind to contact my new headteacher and tell him that I was in breach of contract in my current job – effectively, I think, trying to say that she had the power to attempt to make them withdraw my job offer and leave me unemployed. My teaching union at the time advised me to apologise to the headteacher and hope that this was enough, which it was, but I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so angry as I was at having to write that apology.

 

‘The upshot of all this is that there is no way that I would ever consider applying to work at any Catholic school, and have told my tale to any other teachers I came across who were looking for jobs, as a warning to discourage them from considering applying to work at a Catholic school.’
 

  1. There is qualitative evidence that this point of view is shared by other non-religious teachers in faith schools. Research by Teacher Tapp in 2019 found that only 17% of non-religious teachers in faith schools actually wanted to work in a faith school,[7] a figure which demonstrates an incredibly poor level of job satisfaction.

 

  1. Furthermore, there is evidence from a cross border study on the island of Ireland that non-religious teachers hide or suppress their views in order to secure job opportunities in faith schools:
     

‘...non-religious teachers felt unprepared for the religious expectations they encountered in schools and the assumption that they would conform to the religious culture. This, the study said, caused a range of ethical and professional dilemmas. The majority managed their situation by “hiding or suppressing their identity, including feigning belief”. Some cultivated anonymity or limiting openness to a small group of trusted colleagues. Only a minority of the sample felt they could be confident about expressing their non-religious identity’.[8]
 

  1. It should go without saying that a school system in which the workforce would rather be elsewhere, and in which the workforce does not feel it can express its worldview without being subject to prejudicial treatment from employers, is neither healthy nor sustainable.
     
  2. At the very least it must become explicitly illegal under the Equality Act and/or education law for faith schools in England to discriminate in the recruitment and retention of teachers, unless there is a clear GOR. Northern Ireland has recently led the way in the United Kingdom in this context, by passing the Fair Employment (School Teachers) Act in 2022.[9]
     
  3. Such a change in the law would immediately largely solve the problem of faith schools discriminating against the non-religious, or those of other faiths, in the recruitment of teachers.
     

Recommendation: the Education Committee recommends that the UK Government legislates to remove the ability of faith schools in England to discriminate on religious grounds in the recruitment and retention of teachers, unless it can be demonstrated that there is a genuine occupational requirement for a teacher to have a particular religion.

 

April 2023


[1] Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, 2000, Article 4: http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2000:303:0016:0022:en:PDF

[2] Daily Express (18 January 2023) ‘Rishi Sunak “doubles down” on plans for a bonfire of 4,000 pieces of hated EU law’. Available at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1722570/rishi-sunak-bonfire-eu-law-brexit-news-jacob-rees-mogg [accessed 20 April 2023].

[3] Catholic Education Service (2014) Memorandum On Appointment Of Staff In Catholic Schools. Available at: https://www.catholiceducation.org.uk/employment-documents/bishops-memorandum/item/1000049-memorandum-on-appointment-of-teachers-to-catholic-schools [accessed 19 April 2023].

[4] Humanists UK (1 April 2021) Latest British Social Attitudes survey shows huge generational surge in the non-religious. Available at: https://humanists.uk/2021/04/01/latest-british-social-attitudes-survey-
shows-huge-generational-surge-in-the-non-religious/
[accessed 19 April 2023].

[5] National Statistics (2022) School workforce in England, available at: https://explore-education-
statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england
[accessed 19 April 2023].

[6] Schools Week (14 October 2019) ‘Teachers are losing their religion and breaking the rules’. Available at: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/teachers-are-losing-their-religion-and-breaking-the-rules/ [accessed 19 April 2023].

[7] 17% of 3,762 non-religious respondents disagreed with the statement ‘All else being equal, I would prefer NOT to teach at a school with a religious character’. Source: Teacher Tapp (2019) ‘Teachers Are Losing Their Religion Part Two’. Available at: https://teachertapp.co.uk/articles/teachers-are-losing-their-religion-part-two/ [accessed 19 April 2023].

[8] Irish Times (3 May 2022) ‘Non-religious teachers ‘hide’ beliefs for job opportunities – study’. Available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/non-religious-teachers-hide-beliefs-for-job-opportunities-study-1.4868122 [accessed 19 April 2023].

[9] Humanists UK (24 March 2022) ‘Northern Ireland Assembly ends teacher religious discrimination exemption’. Available at: https://humanists.uk/2022/03/25/northern-ireland-assembly-ends-teacher-
religious-discrimination-exemption/
[accessed 19 April 2023].