Religious leaders from the UK have written a letter to schools minister Steve Gibb asking him to reconsider government plans to not include humanism in GCSE, AS and A-level religious studies.

In the letter, a total of 28 prominent individuals from a number of faiths said they support the study of this worldview, which, along with other non-religious ideas, has been left out of the improved qualifications, which will come into effect in 2016.

“Such a change would not compel anyone to systematically study non-religious worldviews or make it possible to do so for the whole of a qualification, but it would allow young people to study a more representative sample of major worldviews that are common in Britain today,” they told Mr Gibb.

“It would reflect how RE is taught in many schools, the position taken by an increasing number of locally agreed syllabuses, and the 2013 curriculum framework. It would also match the positions of the RE Council for England and Wales and the National Association of Teachers of RE.”

The authors of the letter, which include the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, concluded by saying that the inclusion of humanism would ensure that religious studies would be fair and popular. They see “no reasonable or persuasive argument to oppose it”.

Rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok, emeritus professor of Judaism, University of Wales Trinity; Reverend Steve Dick, executive director of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists; and Harjinder Singh, consultant to the Sikh Federation UK, are some of the notable signees of the letter.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said that the new qualifications, which have been developed in consultation with experts from all the “major faith groups”, would allow for the study of humanism.

She explained: "The proposed new GCSE requires students to have an understanding of the beliefs, teachings and practices of two religions but still allows them to spend up to 50 per cent of the course studying philosophy and ethics; which can include studying humanism and other non-religious beliefs."