Should 'god' be taught in schools?

With all the debate that is going on in UK about education, I began to wonder whether religion is taught in schools elsewhere (other than faith schools). When I was at school long ago and far away ‘religious instruction’ was a compulsory subject. It was given by the local vicar, a nice old boy who had seen service as a Padre in the trenches in WW1, but he was no teacher. The one Catholic in the school was not excused; she had to go to the Catholic college nearby. Presumably we had no practising Jews and we had never seen a Muslim.

I suppose that it is forbidden in France as a strictly secular state, but I guess there must be some ambivalence in the US.

It strikes me that there is much to be said for making comparative religion a compulsory subject in UK secondary schools, so that all pupils get to know the basic tenets of the three great monotheistic religions (but not taught by preachers so as to avoid proselytising and as a social science not as a belief).

Maybe then future adults would not pontificate about Muslims or Jews or Christians from a position of complete ignorance (I was reading an article this week by a teacher who said that the level of ignorance amongst young teenagers was appalling – they didn’t even know the significance of Christmas or Easter).