Banning creationism in Welsh schools?

As a new national curriculum is under development in Wales, a group of the United Kingdom's leading scientists and educators is calling for both increasing the amount of evolution in the curriculum and explicitly banning the teaching of creationism, according to the BBC (September 5, 2019).

The letter, organized by Humanists UK, reads, in part, "The new Science and Technology Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) doesn’t explicitly prohibit presenting creationism and other pseudoscientific theories as evidence-based, and evolution is only mentioned once (and only at secondary level at that)."

In schools in England, according to the letter, evolution is described "as a comprehensive, coherent, and extensively evidenced theory" and theories "contrary to scientific or historical evidence or explanations" are not allowed to be taught as evidence-based: "We urge the Welsh government to introduce the same requirements in Wales."

Glenn Branch
Short Bio

Glenn Branch is Deputy Director of NCSE.

branch@ncse.ngo