The good book should be read as a great work of literature – but it is not a guide to morality, as the education secretary Michael Gove would have us believe

For some reason the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) was not approached for a donation in support of Michael Gove's plan to put a King James Bible in every state school. We would certainly have given it serious consideration, and if the trustees had not agreed I would gladly have contributed myself. In the event, it was left to "millionaire Conservative party donors".

I am a little shocked at the implication that not every school library already possesses a copy. Can that be true? What do they have, then? Harry Potter? Vampires? Or do they prefer one of those modern translations in which "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity" is lyrically rendered as "Perfectly pointless, says the Teacher. Everything is pointless"? That is Ecclesiastes, 1:2, as you'll find it in the Common English Bible. And you can't get much more common than that, although admittedly the God's Word translation provides stiff competition with "absolutely pointless" and the Good News Bible challenges strongly with "useless, useless".

Ecclesiastes, in the 1611 translation, is one of the glories of English literature (I'm told it's pretty good in the original Hebrew, too). The whole King James Bible is littered with literary allusions, almost as many as Shakespeare (to quote that distinguished authority Anon, the trouble with Hamlet is it's so full of clichées). In The God Delusion I have a section called "Religious education as a part of literary culture" in which I list 129 biblical phrases which any cultivated English speaker will instantly recognise and many use without knowing their provenance: the salt of the earth; go the extra mile; I wash my hands of it; filthy lucre; through a glass darkly; wolf in sheep's clothing; hide your light under a bushel; no peace for the wicked; how are the mighty fallen.

A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian. In the week after the 2011 census, my UK Foundation commissioned Ipsos MORI to poll those who had ticked the Christian box. Among other things, we asked them to identify the first book of the New Testament from a choice of Matthew, Genesis, Acts of the Apostles, Psalms, "Don't know" and "Prefer not to say". Only 35% chose Matthew and 39% chose "Don't know" (and 1%, mysteriously, chose "Prefer not to say"). These figures, to repeat, don't refer to British people at large but only to those who self-identified, in the census, as Christians.

European history, too, is incomprehensible without an understanding of the warring factions of Christianity and the book over whose subtleties of interpretation they were so ready to slaughter and torture each other. Does the eucharistic bread merely symbolise the body of Jesus or does it become his body, in true "substance" if not "accidental" DNA? Prolonged wars have been fought over how we should interpret the words allegedly uttered at the Last Supper. Three bishops were burned alive just outside my bedroom window in my old Oxford college for giving the unapproved answer. Centuries-long schisms were based on nothing more serious than the question of whether Jesus is both God and his son, or just his (very important) son. Even bloodier wars were fought against a rival religion that sees him not as God's son at all but just reveres him as a prophet.

I have an ulterior motive for wishing to contribute to Gove's scheme. People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality. This mistaken view may have motivated the "millionaire Conservative party donors". I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.

Do you advocate the Ten Commandments as a guide to the good life? Then I can only presume that you don't know the Ten Commandments. The first two – "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" – come from a time when the Jews still believed in the existence of many gods but had sworn fealty to only one of them, their tribal "jealous" god.

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy": this commandment is regarded as so important that (as our children will learn when they flock into the school library to read the Gove presentation copy) a man caught gathering sticks on the sabbath was summarily stoned to death by the whole community, on direct orders from God.

"Honour thy father and thy mother." Well and good. But honour thy children? Not if God tells you, as he did Abraham in a test of his loyalty, to kill your beloved son for a burnt offering. The lesson is clear: when push comes to shove, obedience to God trumps human decency, to say nothing of obedience to the next commandment, "Thou shalt not kill". This is the only one of the commandments that many devotees actually know. Its obviousness was appropriately mocked by Christopher Hitchens, but my imagination hears the response of the Israelites to Moses in the voice of Basil Fawlty: "Oh I SEE. Thou shalt not KILL. Oh how silly of me. You see, before you came down from the mountain with the tablets, we all thought it was perfectly fine to kill. But now that we've seen it written on a TABLET, well that makes all the difference. Thou shalt not kill, well, who would have thought it? Oh silly me … etc etc."

In any case, the commandment meant only "Thou shalt not kill members of thine own tribe". It was perfectly fine – indeed strongly encouraged throughout the Pentateuch – to kill Canaanites, Midianites, Jebusites, Hivites etc, especially if they had the misfortune to live in the Promised Lebensraum. Kill all the men and boys and most of the women. "But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves" (Numbers 31:18). Such wonderful moral lessons: all children should be exposed to them.

"Sophisticated" theologians (what is there in "theology" to be sophisticated about?) now treat these horrors as parables or myths, which is just as well. But many fundamentalist Protestants still take them literally and positively state that, if God told them to kill their own children, they would obey. Hard to believe, but it is fully documented in a brilliant film, In God We Trust?, by Scott Burdick. Other theologians will accept that the Old Testament is pretty horrible but will point with pride, and nods of approval from all sides, to the New Testament as a truly righteous moral guide. Really?

The central dogma of the New Testament is that Jesus died as a scapegoat for the sin of Adam and the sins that all we unborn generations might have been contemplating in the future. Adam's sin is perhaps mitigated by the extenuating circumstance that he didn't exist. In any case it never amounted to more than scrumping or, depending on your theology, seeking knowledge – which a minister of education should surely consider a virtue. But the unmistakable message is clear. We are all "born in sin" even if we no longer literally believe, with Augustine, that Adam's sin came down to us via the semen. And God, the all-powerful creator, capable of moving mountains and of begetting a universe with all the laws of physics, couldn't find a better way to lift the burden of sin than a blood sacrifice.

In the words of Paul, the inventor of Christianity (or whoever really wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews), "without shedding of blood, there is no remission". And the scapegoat couldn't be just anybody. The sin was so great that only his son (or God himself, depending on your Trinitarian theology) would do. It was necessary for God to come "down" personally to Earth and have himself tortured and executed, after being "betrayed" (though why it was a betrayal since getting himself executed was the main purpose of the visit, is never explained, nor is the millennia-long vendetta against Jews as "Christ-killers").

Whatever else the Bible might be – and it really is a great work of literature – it is not a moral book and young people need to learn that important fact because they are very frequently told the opposite. The examples I have quoted are the tip of a very large and very nasty iceberg. Not a bad way to find out what's in a book is to read it, so I say go to it. But does anybody, even Gove, seriously think they will?

• Richard Dawkins
• The Bible
• Christianity
• Religion
• Schools
• Religion
• Michael Gove
• Ethics
• Science
• Religious studies and theology

Richard Dawkins
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Author of The God Delusion says providing free Bibles to state schools is justified by its impact on the English language

It sounds like one of the most unlikely alliances of recent years. Richard Dawkins, arch-atheist and scourge of the praying classes, has announced support for education secretary Michael Gove's plan to send free King James Bibles to every state school.

The proposal aims to help pupils learn about the Bible's impact "on our history, language, literature and democracy" and will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the authorised version's publication, Gove said earlier this year. Church leaders have approved, but the plan has fallen foul of most non-believers. An online Guardian poll showed an 82% opposition, while the National Secular Society said the £375,000 proposal wasted money and favoured Christianity in multi-faith state schools. Nevertheless, several rich Tory party donors agreed to back the plan and the first Bibles were sent out last week, to the derision of secularists – with the exception of their most prominent and pugnacious recruit: Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and critic of all things clerical.

As Dawkins reveals in today's Observer, support for the Bible plan is justified on the grounds of literary merit and he lists a range of biblical phrases which any cultivated English speaker will instantly recognise. These include "salt of the Earth", "through a glass darkly", and "no peace for the wicked". Dawkins states: "A native speaker of English who has not read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian."

Rapprochement would seem to be in the air – until Dawkins's thesis is studied more closely. While Gove believes the Bible is a guide to morality, Dawkins is sure it is not. "I have heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that without the Bible as a moral compass people would show no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself," he says.

In fact, its pages are riddled with the advocacy of murder, slavery and theft. Hence his support for Gove's plan: opening the Bible is the surest way to put young minds off its contents. From this perspective, the Dawkins-Gove alliance looks dead before it started.

• Richard Dawkins
• Michael Gove
• The Bible
• Religion
• Christianity
• Religion

Robin McKie
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

El presidente de la Junta se compromete a preservar la educación, la sanidad y el empleo público

El miércoles 23 de mayo impartirá la conferencia 'El holocausto español' en el paraninfo de la Nau Centre de Cultura

TV chef Jamie Oliver says he has given up on trying to change governments' attitudes to healthy eating, as he visits New York in a bid to tackle obesity there.

The prospect of high student debt and increased pension contributions could discourage young people from entering medicine, a senior doctor warns.

Study of how things are made and could be improved – including materials science, minerals technology, ceramics and glass, polymers and textiles

What will I learn?
Engineering degrees cover all things related to developing, providing and maintaining infrastructure, products and services that society needs – from researching how to manufacture a product to building bridges and roads.

Students will find themselves studying all, or part, of the life cycle of a product, from conception and design to creation. Science and maths will be the core ingredients, but you will be required to be innovative and know how to use your creative flair within a legal and ethical framework, and in budget.

If you choose materials engineering, you will be entering the most specialist discipline in the engineering stable, which means there are fewer university courses to choose from. It does, however, cover a wide study area, as you will be looking at how everything is made and how it could all be improved. Materials engineering is the meeting point of science and engineering. You'll be required to develop the materials needed for new products, as well as find better, cheaper, quicker, stronger ways of producing those already out there.

If you choose minerals engineering, you will learn about geology, rock mechanics, engineering design, economics, surveying and management. You might focus on blast analysis, advanced-surface and underground surveying, health and safety, ventilation networks, rock mechanics or mineral processing.

What skills will I gain?
Lots. Not only will you have acquired the specific skills to your related engineering discipline, but you'll have learned the practical steps of taking your ideas from the drawing board to the real world. You will know how to solve problems and overcome obstacles, particularly when it comes to considering social and ethical difficulties your work could create. You will know how to work within a budget, be numerate and have good computing skills.

You'll also have an understanding of the legal implications of engineering (health and safety) and how to manage risk, particularly in terms of the environment.

Engineering will involve plenty of teamwork, so you will acquire the ability to argue your ideas, analyse those of others and be able to work towards a common goal.

You should be able to identify customer needs and ensure that your work is fit for purpose.

Chances are you'll get to work on real-life problems, and will probably do a spot of work experience, so you'll have a good idea of how the industry works.

What job can I get?
Careers in manufacturing, processing or in user industries are among the options for materials engineering graduates, perhaps working in research, production or even sales. If you want to research ways of making cars run cheaper and more environmentally friendly, then motor companies will probably want to hear from you. And local and central government are keen to improve their recycling processes, if you were interested in this area. You could also find work in non-governmental organisations, if you don't want to work for the private sector.

Materials and mineral engineering degrees provide an excellent basis for a career in technical management.

What will look good on the CV?
• A knowledge and understanding of scientific and mathematic principles
• The ability to define and develop an economically viable product
• An understanding of the commercial and economic context of engineering processes.

• University guide
• Materials and mineral engineering
• Engineering general
• Higher education
• Ceramics

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

British Medical Association official says debts, rising pension contributions and salary freezes risk deterring potential doctors

Student debts of up to £70,000 and increased pension contributions could dissuade young people from entering medicine, a doctor has warned.

Tom Dolphin of the British Medical Association (BMA) told the Junior Doctors Conference that medical students paying the new £9,000 tuition fees, which come into force in September, will have debts of up to £70,000 by the time they graduate.

They will also face their salaries being eroded by inflation and increased pension contributions, which deter talented students from entering medicine, added Dolphin, chairman of the BMA's Junior Doctor Committee.

In a speech which criticised the government's health reforms, Dolphin encouraged delegates to back strike action to defend their pensions.

He told the conference: "At the moment, it is genuinely hard to find much cause for cheer.

"We need to put up a fight. Imagine for a moment you were applying for a place at medical school right now. With £9,000 tuition fees you will be facing debts on graduation of up to £70,000.

"When you start working, a big chunk of your salary will be used to repay these debts. With salaries frozen for many years, your starting salary will have been eroded by inflation.

"And on top of that you will be faced with increased pension contributions. The burden of austerity is falling too hard on the shoulders of the younger generation and we are seeing this in medicine, too.

"With a future like this, will medicine still be able to attract and retain some of the most talented young people? Would you still make the choice to study medicine?"

Ballot papers are being sent to 103,000 BMA members with the result due at the end of the month.

Should industrial action go ahead, it would be for the first time since the 1970s.

The BMA has ruled out a complete withdrawal of labour but if they vote in favour, doctors would not undertake duties that could safely be postponed.

The BMA argues higher paid NHS staff already pay proportionately more for their pensions than most other public sector workers, a disparity which it said increased in April when their contributions rose, and which is set to increase again.

By 2014, some doctors will see deductions of 14.5% from their pay for their pensions, compared to 7.35% for senior civil servants on similar salaries, to receive similar pensions, the BMA claims.

Doctors at the start of their careers would be hardest hit, having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds extra – double what they would have paid – in lifetime pension contributions, according to the association.

Dolphin said: "The government wants us to pay more and work longer for what will probably be a worse pension.

"The extra contributions add up to more than £200,000 for many junior doctors.

"They won't negotiate any more, even though their 'final offer' is patently unfair."

• Doctors
• Medicine
• Higher education
• Tuition fees
• Public sector pensions
• Public sector pay
• Health
• Students
• Public services policy

David Batty
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Study of the management and dispensing of medicines (pharmacy), and medicinal drugs and effects on the body (pharmacology)

What will I learn?
With your three top-notch A-levels in chemistry, biology, physics or maths, your degree in pharmacy will teach you all about medicines, their uses, and how to manage and dispense them.

Four-year degrees, which will lead to a master of pharmacy qualification, will be followed by a pre-registration year of training in a hospital or in industry, after which you will qualify as a professional pharmacist, registered with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and able to legally dispense drugs.

You will study the origin and chemistry of drugs, the preparation of medicines, their uses and effects, and good pharmacy practice. You will also need to keep up to date with new drugs that come on the market.

Pharmacy is a full-on, 9 to 5 degree, so expect to spend time in lectures, seminars, laboratories and, if possible, on hospital wards or in pharmacies.

Pharmacology, meanwhile, focuses on the ways medicinal drugs are delivered, the effects they have on the body and whether new ones could work better.

You will study cells and tissues in detail, taking modules in organic chemistry, control mechanisms and physiology.

You could also investigate specific diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease, or HIV and Aids, to examine infection rates and the effects of drugs in combating symptoms.

What skills will I gain?
Pharmacy graduates should be able to think clearly and systematically, know what drugs best tackle specific illness, and how to communicate information to the public, who will often want your advice on drugs and general healthcare.

Over the past few years, pharmacists have begun to be seen more as having a key role in dealing with patient care, so get a job in industry if you're not keen on dealing with the public.

By the time you graduate you will have mastered a substantial body of knowledge, and should be raring to get stuck into your pre-registration year.

You should have a thorough understanding of the legal and ethical issues that come with your work.

Good time management and organisational skills are essential.

Pharmacology graduates should also have developed a broad knowledge base.

You should have developed good analytical and critical skills, and be able to present you findings in a clear and concise way.

Your final-year research project (there is bound to be one) will show you can work independently and know how to best present your findings.

What job can I get?
Unemployment rates among pharmacists are low, and the majority of graduates will get jobs in NHS hospitals or in the local high street chemist. Some will venture into industry or stay in universities doing further research or teaching the next crop of students.

An obvious career choice for pharmacology graduates is in industry, either in the lab or working more in marketing or quality checking. If this doesn't appeal, jobs in forensic science or other health-related work are possibilities, or you could undertake further research or train to become a teacher.

What will look good on the CV?
• A multidisciplinary approach to solving healthcare problems
• An ethical attitude towards your role in society
• A high level of interpersonal skills.

• University guide
• Pharmacy and pharmacology
• Higher education

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Almost 8,500 students were suspected of copying in their university applications last year.

The letter that can't be sent to your pupils' parents is published here: "I'm part of the this system. And I had to confess"

Dear Mr and Mrs Parent,

I'm sorry I have to write to you, but it is important you know that your daughter is not progressing as well as she could at school. This isn't her fault, it is the school's.

I only teach your daughter one subject, RE, which she is forced to do and she isn't terribly interested in it. I see her once a week for 50 minutes. As there are 30 other students in the class this means that, if I did nothing else all lesson, I could spend about 100 seconds with her as an individual a week. To teach her, to get to know her, to understand her as a young person. But, as you well know, there are some children in her class who demand much more of my time. This inevitably means that some students will be left with nothing. Unfortunately, that applies to your child. I'll be honest, I haven't held a proper conversation with her in weeks.

I teach 400 children. Slightly more, actually, but we'll call it 400. That means your daughter counts for 0.25% of the children I teach. It is difficult for me to honestly and accurately tell you anything about her, so please forgive me if I speak in vague generalities at parents' evening and try to avoid using your daughter's name. I might have forgotten it.

I teach twenty five lessons a week. Despite my best intentions, some of these lessons are boring. To plan an outstanding lesson can take hours. I can't do that for every lesson I teach. Sometimes I stand in class delivering a lesson I know isn't as good as it could be. I know how to make it better. I just didn't have the time to do it. I don't think the children notice, they are used to this.

Schools are full of middle-management types. They like to take "learning walks" around the school and "quality control". They sit at the back of my class and want to know if the students have been told their "learning objectives" and if they are sat in a "seating plan". They believe that learning simply cannot take place if the students haven't been told what to do and where to sit.  What you might consider real work: comprehension, creative writing, silent reading or a class questioning the teacher about the topic being studied is considered hopelessly old-fashioned and slightly abusive by my superiors. Instead they like almost anything involving power-points, scissors and glue. All work for students needs to be scaffolded. That means be done for them. The very notion of giving a student a task they might fail is considered child abuse. Every task must be completable within about ten minutes. 

The school needs to improve, but I'm not sure it can. Common sense and trust in human communication is being forced out of the profession. A lot of teachers seem to like being told exactly what to do and how to do it. The status quo is just fine for a lot of middle and senior management too. It allows them to wield power, justify inflated salaries and be recognised by their peers as being "outstanding" teachers. A recognition the children in their classes would never give them. Never mind. They never really liked teaching children that much anyway.

I'm sorry to have to write to you like this and tell you that your daughter is under-performing. But I'm part of this system. And I had to confess.

Yours

Secret Teacher

• Today's Secret Teacher teaches at a comprehensive school in Yorkshire.

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Sign up to the Guardian Teacher Network to get access nearly 100,000 pages of teaching resources and join our growing community. Looking for your next role? See our Schools jobs site for thousands of the latest teaching, leadership and support jobs.

Could you be one of our bloggers?

Do you have something you want to share with colleagues – a resource of your own and why it works well with your students, or perhaps a brilliant piece of good practice in teaching or whole school activity that you know about it? If so please get in touch. If you would like to blog on the Guardian Teacher Network please email emma.drury@guardian.co.uk and please don't be shy about commenting on blogs on this page.

• Teaching
• Schools
• Teacher training
• Teachers' workload

The Secret Teacher
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

What matters more than labelling children is that teachers and parents understand how to overcome the barriers to progress, says Garry Freeman, Special Education Needs Coordinator for a school in Leeds.

What matters more than labelling children is that teachers and parents understand how to overcome the barriers to progress, says Garry Freeman, Special Education Needs Coordinator for a school in Leeds.

Do repeated concussions lead to brain damage?

El colectivo progresista, que aboga por la galleguización de la enseñanza, fue fundado hace 29 años

El nuevo temario elude la homofobia o las desigualdades. Incorpora la iniciativa privada y la propiedad intelectual. Denuncia el “nacionalismo excluyente”

El pleno aprueba el proyecto de ley que incorpora el nuevo modelo de gestión del ente público

Moglue es una aplicación muy interesante para la creación de libros interactivos para el entorno Apple, o sea libros con los que los niños pueden interactuar. Recalco la palabra ya que muchas veces llamamos libros interactivos a producciones digitales que incluyen texto, audio o vídeo pero en los que los usuarios son protagonistas pasivos. Utilizando sus dedos pueden tocar los personajes y

La Generalitat anunció que las ayudas variarían según la riqueza de los municipios