British students can opt to skip worship

The British government, seeking to defuse a potential student revolt, has announced that it intends to give high school-age students the right to opt out of collective worship in the nation’s schools if they so wish.

In Britain, collective worship currently is mandatory in all state-operated schools unless parents specifically request that their child or children be excluded. Education Minister Andrew Adonis told the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government plans to relax the laws on compulsory attendance for “sixth-formers” — the equivalent of juniors and seniors in U.S. high schools.

“It is contradictory to say we think young people are old enough at 16 to work and pay taxes, get married and even fight for their country, but then not give them the right to choose whether they participate in worship,” Baroness Joan Walmsley, a key supporter of the government’s planned relaxation, told the chamber. (RNS)