RE Northern Ireland

According to the authors of a recent study the answer to the question, 'Does Religious Education Work?', is 'A heavily qualified yes.' They go on to say: 'In general religious education offers students a positive experience and a pedagogy that focuses on developing their discursive abilities and makes a contribution to multicultural awareness.'  The report is the result of a three-year investigation carried out by the University of Glasgow, King's College London and Queen's University Belfast (where a one-day seminar on the report was held recently).  Using qualitative and quantitative methods, researchers investigated the practices and outcomes of religious education in 24 schools across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. While the report regards religious education generally positively it also makes clear that, in the schools it investigated, the subject 'did not, in the main, make students religiously literate' and that it suffered from

Teachers from eight schools across Northern Ireland had the rare opportunity to chat with Tony Blair during a video conference at Stranmillis University College. The teachers were participating in a one-day training event for the ‘Face to Faith’ programme run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (TBFF) which aims to facilitate inter-faith dialogue through video conferencing and online collaboration. During the session Mr Blair told the teachers: ‘Young people have an enormous appetite to learn about others who are different from them’ and he emphasised the positive value of enabling pupils to dialogue about faith issues and beliefs. Jo Malone, UK Coordinator of TBFF, introduced teachers to the basics of video-conferencing as well as the learning materials and cooperative learning techniques at the heart of the programme. During the day there were also international contributions from experienced inter-faith facilitators in India and Lebanon who stressed the benefits of Face to Faith