Romana Meereis recently shared her research at the June 2026 Association of University Lecturers of Religion and Education (AULRE)/Association of Religious Education Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants (AREIAC) conference.
Why focus on Buddhism in RE?
Before I started my PhD, I tutored Buddhism at GCSE and A-Level and heard from lots of pupils that were they struggling with the material and said that their teachers were too. So, I decided to make the focus of my doctorate on Buddhism in English Religious Education, with the aim of helping the pupils and teachers I had heard from. Three years later and I’ve realised what realistic and feasible change is, and that the curricula we have today is based on fifty-years of compromise, with many people trying their best and continuously advocating for the best Religious Education possible. So, if widespread change is not yet secured (and if it is, it won’t be very quick!) what elements could be amended to improve the Buddhism syllabus in England?
What the research reveals
More recently I have been looking specifically at Buddhism for 11–14-year-olds in England, so these points come directly from that;
- The use of canonical languages: oftentimes two of the Buddhist canonical languages are used alongside each other, without an explanation of their differences. Sometimes it could make sense, using Sanksrit karma instead of Pali kamma, because karma is already a familiar word in English. But when we get to longer words like dependant origination – Pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit) or Paticcasamuppāda (Pali) – things become more difficult and the lack of clarity could do nothing but cause confusion!
- References and pictures: textbooks for 11–14-year-olds seem to be quite formulaic and want every page to have at least one-two pictures. This can lead to tangentially related pictures being included, some with vague captions, and only provided with references for pictures insofar as their copyright. These factors all together make it more difficult to do any further research, if there’s a photograph of a Buddha statue, the caption only says that it’s a statue, and the reference credits the photographer how can you dig any deeper into the where, when, and how of the statue?
- Activities: Some activities portray Buddhism as a very-strict monolith in a way that is “unrecognisable” to Buddhists (Fujiwara, 2019). The activity in question (abbreviated), “a man gets a job he needs to support his family, but it would be as a butcher. As a Buddhist, what should he do?” I think they’re looking for an answer around the conflict of not wanting to cause any harm but also needing to earn money.
Rethinking curriculum and resources: possible approaches
Let’s say that we can only change one aspect of RE, below are a few thoughts I’ve had about how this may look in practice, but I would be interested to hear how you would feel about them, or how you would navigate these changes in your classroom:
Scenario 1: The “ideal” textbook
Whilst browsing you have found a new textbook written by specialist academics and it is aimed at A-Level to first-year undergraduates. You buy the textbook, love and use it in your lessons, and then find that lots of the content within goes much further than what is specified in the A-Level syllabus.
Or
You find a new textbook written by academics specifically for the A-Level syllabus but every page has some caveats in it. The academics who wrote the textbook have kept to the syllabus, but as they believe it only demonstrates a fraction of the wide Buddhist traditions, they have honoured that feeling by adding lots of further knowledge, despite understanding that it is not strictly necessary or recognised by the exam boards.
Scenario 2: Curriculum Guidance and exam alignment
A new Locally Agreed Syllabus has been introduced in your Local area and is being implemented in your school. They have overhauled the syllabus, and it now has really detailed section dedicated to Buddhism, with a glossary and lots of additional resources. You teach this to your students and know that they will be taking a GCSE Buddhism option, but lots of what they will be learning is (as above) not strictly necessary or recognised by the exam boards.
Or
The exam boards rewrite their syllabuses to become more detailed and reflect the breadth of Buddhist traditions worldwide. They provide some resources, but haven’t yet released a textbook as they’re unsure if it will be commercially viable.
- How would you feel if any of these options became a reality?
- Which would you choose?
Towards a more coherent future for RE
The issues I’m trying to highlight are the knotty problems that arise when different areas of the curriculum change out-of-step with each other. Resources or updated curricula are great, but they can add to a workload if they aren’t supported by other areas. There is a possible resolution to these issues, although it certainly won’t be a perfect one-size-fits-all solution, it could help to streamline processes and allow for more widespread change, with (hopefully) new resources to go along with it – RE being made a part of the national curriculum in England. We’re currently in limbo waiting to find outwhether or not RE will be placed in the National Curriculum, but I’m hopeful, I know that it won’t fix everything, but I believe it will be a good step to creating a curriculum which is more representative across a number of religious and non-religious worldviews, and hopefully will come with good quality specialist-approved resources to remove the burden of finding or making resources from teachers.
Please reach out to me to discuss your thoughts, at romana.meereis@education.ox.ac.uk, or at Linkedin.
About
Romana Meereis is a final year DPhil (PhD) student at the University of Oxford, researching Buddhism within Religion and Worldviews in secondary education. She is currently working with Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and the RE Council supporting work on Buddhism and RE resources. She is passionate about lived religion and improving access to high-quality, inclusive materials for the classroom.