Last September the British government banned the teaching of creationism in all free schools and threatened to pull taxpayer funding from all faith schools who continue to teach it.

However, according to a new piece out in The Telegraph, “Creationism is still taught in dozens of faith schools despite Government threats to withdraw their funding.”

The news outlet continued to note that, “Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that 54 private schools are still being funded by local authorities, while continuing to teach that the Earth began with Adam and Eve.”

According to research by the British Humanist Association, only 14 of the 91 schools originally noted to teach creationism while receiving taxpayer money have had their funds withdrawn.

Discussing the disappointing findings with The Telegraph, BHA director of public affairs and campaigns, Pavan Dhaliwal, said: “We congratulated the government last summer when it changed the rules on nursery place funding to this effect.

“It is hugely disappointing therefore to discover that creationist schools have continued to receive state funds since the ban on their doing so came into force.

“Little seems to have been done to ensure conformity to the new rules and the Department for Education (DfE) urgently needs to address this.

“The funding is administered by local authorities and they do not seem to have the same awareness as the DfE as to which local authorities are implicated by such a ban.

“As we have done in the past, we will be doing all we can to raise the issue with relevant officials to ensure that the ban on funding is properly implemented.”

While in September I argues the US could learn a lesson from such a ban, it seems that the UK still has work to do in actually enforcing it. The longer schools are allowed to mislead students, the greater the disadvantage these children will have later in life.

(Image: Amy Watts / Flickr / Creative Commons)