Religious practice improves a child’s educational performance, according to a new report.

The report, Religious Practice and Educational Attainment, by Dr. Pat Fagan of the US-based Family Research finds that “the direct positive effects of religious practice include “higher grade point averages, more time spent on homework, and a significant decrease in high school drop-out rates” and that “all these hold even more so for children from low-income neighbourhoods.”

Education, according to the report, “is widely recognized as the way to maintain the well-being of those born into the middle class. It is also a powerful tool to raise individuals out of poverty. If religious practice were to have a significantly positive role in education, then the practice of religion would have profound implications for world economies and societies.”

The paper explores both the direct and the indirect effects of religion on educational attainment and finds that religious practice directly affects a student’s educational performance: Students involved in religious activities have higher Grade Point Averages by 14.4% and spend more time on their homework.

Additionally, it says, “religion is one of few readily accessible institutions for lower-income families, making its effect on children’s academic success particularly significant. Religious activity remains important in higher education, where over 75 percent of students who become more religious during their college years perform above average.” Religious practise helps “in developing work habits and high personal expectations of achievement, and in reducing behavioural risks” while “Churches and religious schools offer community and solidarity, supplementing sometimes-sparse student resources and offering mentorship.”

Regular religious attendance, it concludes, “can increase the internalization of moral norms and values, strengthen…habits of discipline, and increase adolescents’ expectations of themselves. Religious practice, by stabilizing parental marriage and by making family life happier, increases levels of educational attainment.”

The report notes that “though religious practice must be engaged in voluntarily in order for it to produce effective educational results, those entrusted with the public welfare have an interest in protecting and promoting it, if only because of its utility to society at large.”