Government criticised for axing bursaries for RE teacher training

The UK government’s decision to remove teacher training bursaries for Religious Education (RE) has been criticised by Humanists UK, which called the move “short-sighted”.

New Department for Education (DfE) guidance for the 2026–2027 academic year confirms that bursaries will be offered only for selected subjects, excluding RE. The change comes despite an Ofsted report last year warning that more than half of schools were relying on non-specialist staff to teach RE.

The 2024 Ofsted report, Deep and meaningful? The religious education subject report, found that “over half the schools visited used non-specialist teachers to teach RE” and that “in the majority of these schools, teachers had not had any subject-specific professional development”. Inspectors said these teachers lacked the necessary subject and pedagogical knowledge.

According to Humanists UK, the government’s decision ran counter to these findings and would make it harder to attract and retain qualified specialists. In its submission to the Curriculum and Assessment Review earlier this year, the organisation called for higher bursaries for RE training and for the subject to be brought into the National Curriculum to ensure consistent teaching across all state-funded schools.

Lewis, Young, education campaigns manager at Humanists UK, said: “Scrapping RE bursaries is a short-sighted move. The government’s own inspectorate has set out how much better RE needs to be, yet this decision will make it harder to recruit and train the specialist teachers who deliver that improvement.

“In a society where most young people are non-religious and our classrooms are increasingly diverse, pupils need accurate, critical, and inclusive teaching about religions and non-religious worldviews. Cutting bursaries sends exactly the wrong signal and risks undermining standards and inclusion across the curriculum.”