NEW guidelines on how Religious Education should be taught in Buckinghamshire's schools has been slammed amid claims that it has turned Christianity into a minor subject.

The Buckinghamshire Syllabus for Religious Education (2006 to 2011) is set to be approved next week, but some councillors say its guidelines are more in favour of minority faiths.

The original document launched by Buckinghamshire County Council advised that schools devote 40 per cent of their lessons to Christianity while 60 per cent should be devoted to other faiths.

Islam and Hinduism in particular should be accorded 20 per cent each, it outlined.

But the figures have now been removed in a new draft of the document after it was claimed that the county council was being too politically correct.

The authority says the figures were only a rough guide and that schools can seek advice from it directly if they want to know how to deliver RE.

Cllr David Meacock (Con, Amersham) said removing the figures hadn't gone far enough.

He said: "Removing the figures doesn't change the content - it doesn't go far enough." He said the problem remained that at the moment Christianity would be taught 40 per cent of the time.

"You can say it is bigger than the other individual religions (in what should be taught), but it does not reflect the local population, which it should. "

The county council dismissed the claims saying Christianity was still clearly the predominant religion in the syllabus, as demanded by central government.

However, Cllr Meacock called for the last UK Census results to be followed, meaning that Christianity would take up 75 per cent of lessons with the remaining 25 per cent being spent on others.

Cllr Rafiq Raja, chairman of the Muslim Parents Association in Wycombe, disagreed that Christianity should take up more of lessons.

He said: "The percentages game should be a non-issue and instead we should focus on the calibre, knowledge and empathy of the teachers who would be taking the RE lessons for religions other than their own."