Religious instruction and observance should be no part of the general curriculum in publicly funded schools. That is, strictly, the way of things in the USA and it should be the way in the UK too. Religion, in the sense of religious belief and religious practices, is the business of the individual and, with suitable reservations as to mutual respect with people with other beliefs, the business of the family.

The secularisation of publicly funded education has to be what is needed in a mixed society that includes adherents to many different faiths and also a large number of people who are, to varying degrees, unimpressed by any religious claims whatever as to truth, wisdom and goodness. The alternatives to this secularisation are either the imposition of unacceptable beliefs and practices on many pupils or the reduction of all religions to a mish-mash that is served up to all and heeded seriously by none.

Of course, pupils should be taught ABOUT religions - the claims made on their behalf and the roles they have played in history and cultures. The schools' time is precious if things of genuine common interest and importance are to be dealt with properly. Religious beliefs and practices should not be part of publicly funded school life - except perhaps by way of voluntary 'out of hours' societies. If a school can have a chess club or an archaeological society then it can, as well, have a Christian Society or a Hindu Society ..... or any other that pupils wish to have.

What can take the place of religious education in schools? Nothing need 'take its place' but there are basic things that we let our schools neglect at our peril and which are sometimes distorted by much of what is done under 'RE'. In addition to the three R's (which we all need) we ought to place great emphasis on the three E's. Not all the three R's actually begin with 'R'; not all the three E's actually begin with 'E' but that is by the way. The three E's are, in no particular order of priority, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. We and posterity need this planet to be made, and kept, clean healthy and productive; it is our home. Practice ought always to be based on fact - or at least on reasonable probability as to fact. It is simply not good enough merely to cherish 'the planet' as a cuddly toy of the concerned middle class mind (rather as 'progress' was such a toy of the Victorians, rather as 'the working class' was the mental teddy bear of the intelligentsia of two generations ago). Practice ought to be based not upon what feels green, not upon what is currently dear to green hearts, but upon careful factual assessment of what, sustainably, the planet can give to us and can take from us.

Epistemology is the attempted answer to the question on what grounds can it properly be claimed that xyz is indeed the case. (where xyz is any statement purporting to be factual). Nobody would expect ordinary pupils to gain much from formal tuition in epistemology but even the most ordinary pupils need to have it instilled in them that it is simply not good enough to do what is done in many a bar-room debate - it is simply not good enough to say the truth is that which I feel to be true or the truth is that which I proclaim or the truth is that which authority requires me to assert. Everybody needs to understand that truth, or more usually probable truth, is identified only by sceptical resort to defensible criteria. Without some degree of epistemological discipline, the truth will elude us and our best intentions about 'the planet' may well be misguided. All, except the bigoted, have a necessary interest in pupils' critical abilities being developed.

As to ethics, it is simply not good enough to proclaim 'moral values' (and by implication to claim that other people are for ever undermining those values). Ethics is the practical inquiry into how shared general values can be applied to concrete cases, how to deal with situations in which there are evidently competing moral imperatives. The big ethical question for us all is how can we reconcile the legitimate interests of contemporary people with the legitimate interests of near, and far, posterity? This problem cannot be tackled usefully by vague moralising; it has to be addressed by disciplined ethical inquiry. Again, ordinary pupils cannot be expected to benefit from formal studies in ethics but they should be made fully aware that 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Ethics, like epistemology, is a matter of disciplined sceptical inquiry - not merely a matter of untutored intuition.

Aesthetics - the reflection upon, and cultivation of, our sense of the beautiful - is quite basic to effective humanity. Our principal motivation is our awareness that many aspects of the natural world, and many of our artefacts within that world, are valuable precisely because they can excite our sense of wonder at the beautiful. Without the aesthetic dimension we might as well not bother about anything else very much.

We can develop ideas about the three E's but we should be most careful not to force those ideas into any specific ideological pattern - political or religious or whatever. The three E's are our proper concern both as unique individuals and as particles of common humanity. Educators ought to take careful note of that.

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