The modern age is entropic by nature it seems, and we are bombarded daily by different ideas and conflicting news stories, indicative, perhaps, of national confusion in a period of change. Yet nowhere does this seem more apparent than in the British education system. Universities must adapt to an aging population by offering more part-time course and career training, according to a recent Universities U.K. report. That state schools must likewise adapt to an increasingly multicultural society, seems to be a more widely aired message.
 
With faith-schools coming under attack for unwittingly segregating the various ethnic and religious communities of Britain the National Union of Teachers (N.U.T.) has now suggested that priests, rabbis, and imams could be invited to teach children of their faith, in special faith classes. According to the last census (2001), we should note, 71.8 percent of the population describes itself as Christian, with the next largest group being those who claimed “no religion” at 15.1 percent. The combined non-Christian religious population (e.g., Muslim, Sikh, etc.) then made up 5.4 percent of the total population.
 
While schools already have some form of religious education, the government and education authority have been accused of whittling away the teaching of the Christian religion, and increasing time spent on other religions. Last year, schools in the county of Buckinghamshire, for example, were told to spend 40 percent of their time on Christianity and 20 percent on Islam and a further 20 percent on Hinduism. In some cases Christianity may not be taught at all, with the entire curriculum given over to Islam, Hinduism, etc. While it is undoubtedly useful for students to know something about other religions, Christianity is unique in the West, in that, it has informed its great art, literature, themes of musical compositions, philosophy, etc., and thus without a good knowledge of this particular religion Western culture and history are almost impossible to understand.
 
Yet British children have very little knowledge of their nation’s history. According to recent surveys most school children think that Churchill was an astronaut or an insurance salesman. Far from attempting to rectify this, Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has suggested, in the last week, that key events in British history should not necessarily be taught:

Quite seriously, we have got to move beyond, ‘Should we or should we not teach Shakespeare? […] Is the world going to collapse if they don't know, ‘To Be, Or Not To Be?’

Bousted has complained that the curriculum involves too much “rote learning” and lacks hands-on life skills. Industry has also complained that graduates lack business skills or general knowledge. Education is largely “to the test”, and yet increasingly characterized by low expectations. Notably, last year Britain fell ten places in what is regarded as the world’s most important school league table, and The Times has recently described classrooms as “war zones”, with one out of every ten teachers attacked by a student, quite aside from the more usual violence between students.
 
With parents often disengaged from, or unwilling to discipline, their children, and with peer pressure extended into the home through online social networking sites such as Facebook, it seems that children need more than “life skills”, general knowledge, or industry savvy. Children and young people find themselves increasingly hemmed into an eternal present, devoid of meaning, and as such it is no surprise that they are becoming increasingly destructive, and in many cases self-destructive. Children need the guidance of the lessons of history and religion.
 
Yet, there are sound reasons at this point in our history, to argue for a separation of Church and state. The Church of England has attacked the idea of faith classes, saying that teaching children their faith is a duty of religious institutions, and certainly schools seem ill equipped for such a move. More worryingly, others, such as John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, see the possibility of schools facilitating the spread of “extreme views”.