THE strictly secular state education system is to develop religious instruction in schools, not to encourage a belief in a god but to expand pupils’ cultural knowledge and understanding of world events.

Education minister Jack Lang has announced new programmes in primary and secondary schools, strengthened teacher training and a university research network. He was responding to the recommendations of an inquiry into religion in schools by the academic and writer Regis Debray.

“Lacking information about religion makes Mozart’s Don Giovanni or the sculptures of Chartres cathedral totally incomprehensible,” said Mr Debray at the announcement of the reform.

“How can you understand September 11 or the rifts in Yugoslavia without religious knowledge? Ignorance of the past and the beliefs of others is loaded with cliches and prejudices.”

Traditionally, religion has had no place in state schools and vigilant groups exist to keep it that way. Heated debate and constitutional wrangles have arisen in recent years over issues such as Muslim schoolgirls wearing headscarves or public expenditure for Catholic schools.

Pupils have Wednesdays free, the legacy of a deal struck between church and state more than a century ago to allow children to study their catechism.

Religious issues are already broached in other lessons, and Mr Lang does not intend to create a separate subject of religious studies but to integrate them throughout the curriculum.

A key element of the reform will be to give teachers a solid training to handle potentially sensitive or explosive topics, which many are currently reluctant to raise in class.

Courses for second-year student teachers will include a compulsory module on the philosophy of secularism and the history of religions, notably Christianity, Islam and Judaism; and the committee which advises on secularity in schools will define a non-denominational model for education.

At primary school, history lessons will include “the transition from several gods to one god” and could explore the main religious festivals, said Mr Lang. Such notions as learning to live in harmony with others will also be covered.

At lower secondary, religious themes will be raised in French and history, and in new multi-disciplinary studies that cover such fields as nature, arts and humanities, and languages and civilisations.

For lycee pupils, religion will be assimilated in individual project work, art and philosophy and could include setting major religious events and influences in the context of the evolution of societies.

An urgent measure will be the creation of a European institute of religious sciences, and a university-level network to develop research.