Young Earth Creationism in British Schools

Here’s an interesting anecdote. A friend of my wife’s from Exeter says that she discovered her primary school was teaching her child Young Earth Creationism (YEC). When she went to the head teacher to complain, the head said that the school needed to combat the work of atheists and the anti-Christ. When this parent then went to the Local Education Authority to complain, it did nothing, citing the school’s excellent performance as evidence that all was well. It is one of the top performing primaries in Exeter. Understandably, this parent feels helpless and frustrated.

It’s just an anecdote. But it is yet another example of Young Earth Creationism being taught in schools without parents’ knowledge (or even, in some cases, the schools’ knowledge).

As I remarked earlier, it seems there is a lot more YEC being taught in schools than most of us realize.

Quoting from an earlier post:

Students from British Universities were surveyed on a range of questions, including whether they were Young Earth Creationists, and whether Young Earth Creationism had been taught to them by their parents, school, sunday school, etc.

Amazingly, 12% of these undergrads were Young Earth Creationists. But the real stand-out statistic for me was that 19% of students said that they had been taught Young Earth Creationism “as fact” in school.

19%! One in five students. We are not talking mostly Muslim schools either. The figure for those who were of other non-Christian religion was actually much lower.

If 1 in 5 British students are taught in school that it’s a fact that the entire universe is less than ten thousand years old and that God made all species as literally described in Genesis, that’s a national educational disgrace.

As comparatively few schools (esp. non-Muslim schools) publicly admit to teaching children Young Earth Creationism “as fact”, it would appear that much of this teaching is going on under the public radar.

If you become aware of YEC being taught in your local schools, do let me know. I would also suggest contacting the local press, as Local Education Authorities seem uninterested in the problem (perhaps because their hands are, in effect, tied).