Religious education in Poland

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The religious education in Poland takes place at all schools and kindergartens rather than public ownership. It is officially a non-compulsory school subject (roughly corresponds to the German term elective).

Legal bases

Religion as a school subject was introduced in its current form on September 1, 1990 under apparently unlawful circumstances by means of an instruction (internal guideline of the authority) issued by Education Minister Henryk Samsonowicz dated August 24, 1990 and published on August 30, 1990 . This happened under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church or, according to Samsonowicz, at the request of the Roman Catholic Church or the parents' associations. Until 1997, an express separation of church and state was enshrined in the Polish constitution . Therefore the civil rights attorney filed a procedural and substantive constitutional complaint. On January 30, 1991, however, the Constitutional Court ruled on the constitutionality of the service instructions under a special vote . It was only on 14 April 1992 was Decree of the Minister of National Education Andrzej Stelmachowski adopted which sanctioned the statement public law and also the grading of religion has introduced on the report card. On August 19, 1992, this became the occasion for a renewed constitutional complaint by the Commissioner for Civil Rights , which was dismissed on April 20, 1993, also with a separate vote.

On June 30, 1999, the previous ordinance on the conditions and implementation of religious education in public schools was amended and religious education was extended to kindergartens. On July 28, 1993, the executive cabinet of Suchocka signed a concordat which obliges the Polish government to establish Catholic religious instruction within the timetable.

Religious education has been anchored in the constitution since 1997. According to this, it is permissible that the religion of the churches and other publicly recognized religious communities (but not the worldview of the non-religious worldview communities ) is taught in schools. Article 53 (4) of the constitution of April 2, 1997 leaves it open as to whether religious instruction can also be declared a regular or compulsory subject. At the same time, it does not specify whether the churches and religious communities are entitled to religious instruction.

Organization and sponsorship of the lessons

Religious instruction is given in public kindergartens , elementary schools (1st to 6th grade), high schools (7th to 9th grade) and lyceums (10th to 12th grade) in Poland . In the kindergartens it generally takes place for children in the age groups from around the age of five, but sometimes it starts as early as three years. Schools and kindergartens are obliged to set up religious instruction of a denomination (church or publicly recognized religious community), provided that at least seven pupils (kindergarten children) belong to this denomination within a class (or kindergarten group) and their parents request that these lessons be set up. The same applies if, through a suitable combination, students from different classes can form a lesson group of at least seven of one denomination. In practice, mostly only Roman Catholic religious instruction is offered, especially since, according to the Concordat, this must be set up independently of the parents' wishes. In addition, according to a response from Education Minister Katarzyna Hall, as part of a major inquiry in 2008, Orthodox , Protestant , Adventist , Baptist , Pentecostal , Polish-Catholic , Maravite , Jewish and Islamic religious instruction was offered at various schools .

Religion teachers in Poland are catechists as well as priests and religious . Religious instruction, teachers and their training as well as teaching aids are not subject to any state supervision; the Ministry of Education is only informed about this. These contents are defined in accordance with the Religious Education Ordinance by the Roman Catholic Episcopal Curia or comparable administrative units in other religious communities. The teachers who identify themselves with a recommendation from the responsible bishop or a comparable church official must, however, be accepted into the employment relationship by the respective educational institutions without further conditions and are thus remunerated for their work exclusively from public funds. In autumn 2012, responsibility for this was transferred from the central administration to the castle and rural districts .

Participation in religious education

Since it is formally a non-compulsory subject, according to the Religious Education Ordinance, admission should take place through an informal registration by the parents. It is common practice, however, that the school administration initially registers all pupils for (Roman Catholic) religious instruction and that parents who do not want religious instruction must explicitly de-register their children from the school administration or religion teacher. In individual cases, a written request for deregistration is required, stating the reasons, which is not compatible with the constitutional right to remain silent in matters of religion. By means of instructions, the Catholic Curia require the catechists to record the personal data including address details of the students who are not participating in Catholic religious instruction (including non-members of the Church) as well as the stated reasons for deregistration and to forward them to the Curia for the purpose of comparison with the church membership lists. This practice was reprimanded as illegal by the Commissioner for Civil Rights and the General Inspector for Personal Data Protection (GIODO), but further official acts were omitted.

Students are only allowed to cancel their own lessons after they have reached the age of majority. In this context, Poland expressed the following reservation against Article 14 ( freedom of thought, conscience and religion ) when adopting the Children's Rights Convention in 1991 : The Polish Republic is of the opinion that the exercise of these children's rights (...) is in accordance with Polish customs and traditions regarding the place of the child in and outside the family .

The rating is in testimony to the second position, together with the behavior score in the top block top notes tab (not among the optional subjects, which are generally listed below the required subjects in a third block). The grade is entered without information about the denomination. The grading of religion is relevant for admission to the higher school level and for the cum laude degrees , but not for promotion within the school level (elementary school, grammar school, lyceum).

Since 2012, the ecclesiastical side has increasingly been addressing the introduction of compulsory participation in religious education. In August 2013, Józef Kowalczyk , Primate of Poland and Chairman of the Bishops' Conference, called for mandatory Roman Catholic religious instruction for all students as a prerequisite for graduation .

Ethics as an alternative subject

As an alternative subject to religion, according to the Religious Instruction Ordinance, ethics instruction is to be offered in public schools based on a similar principle . It is not a substitute subject or a compulsory elective subject . Both religion (of various denominations) and ethics are optional subjects according to the regulation. The grade should be given in the certificate under the same heading as religion, without specifying whether the religion or ethics class was attended. In contrast to religious education, the content should be determined by the public school administration. However, this has not yet happened, so that the ethics teachers have to prepare the course content on their own.

In practice, ethics lessons are extremely rarely offered, because schools also point out the lack of suitable teachers when the parents request this. In 2010 it took place at 334 of a total of 32,136 public schools (approx. 1.03%). On June 15, 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the Grzelak v. Republic of Poland case that the non-availability of the elective subject ethics violated Article 14 ( prohibition of discrimination ) in conjunction with Article 9 ( freedom of thought, conscience and religion ) of the European Convention on Human Rights represents. A long line (“––––”) is entered in the relevant heading in the certificates of students who have not attended religious or ethics classes, which means that they do not belong to the Roman Catholic Church that is dominant in Poland . The Polish Foreign Ministry did not consider this judgment to be a landmark judgment.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Katarzyna Wiśniewska, Henryk Samsonowicz: Samsonowicz: Religia nie powinna być uczona w sposób archaiczny, jak teraz. In: Gazeta Wyborcza. August 27, 2012, accessed October 1, 2012 .
  2. ↑ a b Marcin Król: Nauczanie religii w demokracji. In: Wprost. 2012, accessed October 1, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Konstytucja Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej uchwalona przez Sejm Ustawodawczy w dniu 22 lipca 1952 r. (No longer available online.) In: sejm.gov.pl. July 22, 1952, archived from the original on March 6, 2016 ; Retrieved October 2, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / isap.sejm.gov.pl
  4. ↑ Orzeczenie Trybunału Konstytucyjnego z 1991-01-30 sygn. K 11/90. In: konstytucja.e-prawnik.pl. January 30, 1991, accessed October 2, 2012 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Rozporządzenie Ministra Edukacji Narodowej z dnia 14 kwietnia 1992 r. w sprawie warunków i sposobu organizowania nauki religii w szkołach publicznych. In: sejm.gov.pl. April 14, 1992, accessed October 3, 2012 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Rozporządzenie Ministra Edukacji Narodowej z dnia 30 czerwca 1999 r. zmieniające rozporządzenie w sprawie warunków i sposobu organizowania nauki religii w szkołach publicznych. In: sejm.gov.pl. June 30, 1999, accessed October 1, 2012 .
  7. ↑ a b Concordat między Stolicą Apostolską i Rzecząpospolitą Polską, podpisany w Warszawie dnia 28 lipca 1993 r. In: sejm.gov.pl. February 23, 1998, accessed October 1, 2012 .
  8. ↑ CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND - CHAPTER II - FREEDOMS, RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF MAN AND CITIZEN. In: sejm.gov.pl. April 2, 1997, accessed on October 2, 2012 : "The religion of a church or another legally recognized denomination may be taught in school, whereby the freedom of conscience and religion of other people must not be affected."
  9. ↑ Interpelacja nr 293 w sprawie nauczania religii w szkołach. In: sejm.gov.pl. February 7, 2008, accessed October 2, 2012 .
  10. ↑ Łukasz Poczyński: Obowiązek uczęszczania na lekcje etyki lub religii. In: eporady24.pl. January 7, 2011, accessed October 2, 2012 .
  11. ↑ Paulina Nowosielska: Obowiązkowa religia? In: Przegląd. Retrieved October 2, 2012 .
  12. ↑ a b Ewa Siedlecka: Jak walczyć o etykę w szkole po wyroku w Strasburgu. In: wyborcza.pl. June 16, 2010, accessed October 3, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Anna Sapieha: Rodzice: Szkoła chciała, żebyśmy pisali podanie o zwolnienie dzieci z religii. Z uzasadnieniem. In: TOKFM.pl. September 29, 2012, accessed October 2, 2012 .
  14. ↑ See illustration of the ecclesiastical form “Information about the renouncement of religious education”, Łukasz Konarski: Kuria: Mamy prawo informować parafie, kto nie chodzi na religiousę. In: gazeta.pl. March 19, 2009, accessed April 5, 2013 .
  15. ^ Generalny Inspector Ochrony Danych Osobowych (GIODO). In: Polish Wikipedia
  16. ↑ Kuria zbiera dane o uczniach - co na to inspector ?. In: wp.pl . March 20, 2009, accessed April 5, 2013 .
  17. ↑ Konwencja o prawach dziecka ONZ. Uwagi o realizacji konwencji przez Rzeczpospolitą Polską. In: sejm.gov.pl. April 30, 1991, accessed October 1, 2012 .
  18. ↑ olg: Prymas: Katecheza powinna być obowiązkowa. Jest niezbędna w kształceniu ogólnym. In: wyborcza.pl. August 31, 2013, accessed September 2, 2013 .
  19. ↑ a b c CASE OF GRZELAK v. POLAND (Application no. 7710/02). In: HUDOC. June 15, 2010, accessed October 10, 2012 : “The Government in their submissions indicated that the vast majority of religious education classes concerned Roman Catholicism. The fact of having no mark for “religion / ethics” inevitably has a specific connotation and distinguishes the persons concerned from those who have a mark for the subject [...]. This finding takes on particular significance in respect of a country like Poland where the great majority of the population owe allegiance to one particular religion. "