The announcement that students on the OCR exam board's GCSE religious studies course will now study humanism is good news for balanced and objective education. But it is not just that the inclusion of humanism as a non-religious world-view is to be welcomed in itself; it is also significant in that the move - and the media's reaction to it - implies the acceptance of humanist beliefs and values as representing a coherent stance on life, with its own integrity. In 2004, by contrast, when the first government national framework for religious education (RE) recommended the study of humanism, there were headlines such as "Children to study atheism at school" (the Observer) and "Schools are told to teach atheism" (the Sun). This focus on one aspect of the humanist world-view (its view on the non-existence of gods), and the general portrayal of humanist beliefs as just a reaction to or critique of religion, obscures the richness and depth of both the humanist outlook as a modern life stance and of the millennia-old humanist tradition. Four years later, it is encouraging to see acceptance of the independent existence of the humanist outlook (by OCR at least - other exam boards have not yet been so inclusive).
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