EDUCATION-SERBIA: Schools to Teach Religion After a 55-Year Break

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Aug 1 2001 (IPS) - Much to the chagrin of independent experts, the Serbian government has decided to introduce religious teaching in elementary and secondary schools beginning September 1.

Critics consider the decision as “hasty” and an attempt to sever ties with 55 years of communist history.

Since the Second World War ended in 1945, communists and neo- communists have been ruling Serbia, which constitutes together with Montenegro the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

With the fall from power of Slobodan Milosevic last October, the country’s history took a new direction.

Since his extradition from Belgrade at the end of June, the former Yugoslav President has been detained in The Hague by the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Those with longer memory say that the Serbian government’s decision to teach religion in the schools reminds them of the 1970’s when the teaching of Marxism became a part of the school curricula.

Rejecting criticism, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said the decision to allow religious teaching was taken in the wake of “successful talks with representatives of all religious groups” in the country.

“There were no reasons to halt such a decision or to postpone it,” Djindjic added.

The decree says that – to start with – religion classes will be held once a week in the first grades of elementary and secondary schools. Gradually religious teaching will become a part of the curricula.

Parents who do not want their children to attend those classes can choose ‘ethics and human rights’ instead.

Expectedly, the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), Catholic Church Bishops’ Conference of Serbia and the Organisation of the Islamic Community, have welcomed the decree issued last week.

On paper, 87 percent of 7,5 million people living in Serbia are of Orthodox faith, while the Catholic Church and the Islamic community count their believers in several hundred thousands.

The Serbian Orthodox Church, being the biggest single church in the country, has welcomed the re-introduction of religious teaching, arguing that “it will lead to a return to traditional values of the Serbian society”.

“The traditional values were almost annihilated by the decades of godless rule of previous regimes that tried to distance Serbs from the very substance of their existence,” the SPC said in a statement.

But Danica Ivankovic, mother of the seven-year old Tijana, is not convinced. “The whole thing looks ridiculous to me,” she says

“Kids enter school and learn how to write or read. Now they will have to learn about abstract things like death and resurrection or the God who created the world. On the other hand, what can they know about human rights at this age?”

The decree has met with little enthusiasm also among experts in the fields of education, sociology and psychology. They are objecting to the Prime Minister’s manner of making a decision by consulting only the churches and leaving out experts and even the Education Ministry.

“I pray to God that this experiment does not fail,” Education Minister Gaso Knezevic told journalists after the decree became public. “I am not against making religion a part of the curriculum, but introducing any new subject takes at least two years of preparation.”

“This was Mr Djindjic’s concession under the pressure of the Orthodox Church, that wants to regain influence in Serbian society,” Knezevic added.

He was backed by participants in a roundtable last weekend on ‘Catechism and Democracy’, organised by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia.

The roundtable concluded that, due to several reasons, the introduction of catechism would be to the detriment of children, the society at large, the state and even the church.

“On the one hand, we will undoubtedly see the clericalisation of society,” sociologist Mirko Djordjevic said at the roundtable. “On the other hand, we will be a witness to the emergence of anti- religious feelings. Everything that is imposed upon people, above all on pupils, is doomed to have a counter-effect sooner or later.”

Similar “experiments” were introduced in neighbouring Croatia and in Serb part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and failed, Djordjevic added. “Less and less students attended the classes. Already burdened with huge curricula, they had no time for religion in school.”

Like other participants, Djordjevic reminded that not so many Serbs are believers, no matter how many belong to the Orthodox Church on paper.

In a recent public opinion survey, conducted by the prominent ‘Faktor Plus’ agency, only 22,8 percent of the Serbs said that they are religious. Some 40,8 percent said they were not religious. The rest appeared to be more or less indifferent towards the church.

Against this backdrop, Serbian sociologist Obrad Savic is convinced that the idea to teach religion in schools was clearly introduced under the pressure of the Orthodox Church.

“The church is afraid of the rapid advance of globalisation, it remains xenophobic and hates modernisation.”

Savic and other participants in the roundtable reminded that the teaching of Marxism was introduced in a similar manner three decades ago.

“It was the most ridiculed and the most hated matter among students,” anthropologist Zagorka Golubovic said.