THE National Governors' Association (NGA), which represents 300,000 school governors in England, is seeking to abolish the 70-year-old legislation that requires all schools, whether or not they have a religious character, to hold a daily act of collective worship. Acts of worship that were not in line with pupils' faith are meaningless, an NGA statement said.

It went on: "The view was taken that schools are not places of worship, but places of education, and expecting the worship of a religion or religions in schools without a religious character should not be a compulsory part of education in England today." Moreover, the statement said, many schools lacked the space necessary to provide collective worship, and teachers who were able or willing to lead it.

The new policy, which sharpens the NGA's former position, that collective worship should not be mandatory, was drawn up at a meeting of the organisation's 15-member policy committee last month.

When the provision of collective worship - which has been an accepted feature in most schools since compulsory education was established in the 19th century - was made mandatory in the 1944 Education Act, with the assumption that it would be non-denominationally Christian, provision was made for non-Christians and dissenting parents to withdraw their children.

This provision was included in the 1982 Education Reform Act, which said that worship should be "wholly or mainly Christian". But schools that had large numbers of children from other faiths could apply for a "determination", excusing them from this requirement.

Although the collective-worship requirement has frequently been challenged, it is still observed in some form in most primary schools. In many secondary schools, the rule is often honoured in the breach; and, in most schools where worship takes place, the style is far removed from the standard hymn-and-prayer format of the 1940s and '50s.

The NGA's statement emphasises that its changed stance on worship does not affect its position on religious education. "It is important that students continue to be taught a broad and balanced curriculum that encourages a knowledge and under-standing of all faiths," it says.

The Church of England's chief education officer, the Revd Jan Ainsworth, has suggested that collective worship offers something unique: "Worship may be the only place in our over-regulated schools where the tyranny of SATS and constant assessment can be forgotten for a few minutes, and real engagement take place.

"Assemblies can meet all the community-building functions beloved of any organisation. Take away the religious framing, and you impoverish the experience, reducing the content to a sort of EU morality, or an Aesop's Fables approach to spiritual development."