The purpose of the subject is to make a contribution to the human and educational development of children by enabling them to understand something of religion and religions, and to develop their own sense of values in living through an encounter with the values and the spirituality of the religions of the world. Children are invited to question and to debate. Moreover, the subject is secular in the sense that the teachers of religious education are ordinary teachers. They are not necessarily ordained as ministers of religion. Indeed, it is not required that the teacher of religious education should have any particular faith of his or her own.
Religious education is treated as a professional responsibility.
Specialist teachers who must be graduates in theology or religious studies are trained along side the specialist teachers in other curriculum subjects. In the third place, the religious education we teach in England and Wales is both critical and spiritual. We seek to enable children to develop thinking skills, to evaluate evidence, and to become well informed about the modern world. We also expect children to develop a critical sense of the values of society, and thus to develop their sense of citizenship within a diverse society. In many countries, such as in the USA, religious education is part of a theological course, or is taught within a department of theology.