The Ministry of National Education intends to reduce the number of hours of classes in religion and ethics at school. The Ordo Iuris Institute warns that changes in the rules for the organisation of lessons will lead to discrimination against students wishing to participate in classes. The introduction of modifications will besides consequence in a wave of dismissals among catechists.
On 30 April, a draft regulation of the Minister of Education amending the Regulation on the conditions and manner of organising religion in public kindergartens and schools appeared on the website of the Government Legislative Centre. The changes concern the anticipation of combining pupils attending spiritual or ethics classes into 1 inter-branch group (including students at the same phase of teaching) or inter-class grouping students from different stages of education. Until now, this anticipation of merging students has only occurred in a situation where the number of students in a given class or branch was little than 7.
The public consultation and opinion of the draft regulation is presently underway, which will end around the end of May. The Ministry would like the proposed changes to enter into force from 1 September 2024.
The draft regulation besides provides that in primary schools, combined inter-class groups could only cover students of grades I to III or IV to VIII . There may so be a situation where the age difference between students of the interclass group, composed of students of grades IV and VIII, may be up to 5 years.
"The four-year or five-year age gap between pupils in the combined interclass group may make real difficulties in adapting teaching content to pupils of different ages. By allowing specified large age differences, the Ministry will de facto prevent the conduct of classes in the right way, which will lead to a extremist decline in the already-tested level of quality of classes" – says Dr. Łukasz Bernaciński of OI.
"The absence of an acceptable age difference between pupils (...) confirms the ideological attack on the will of parents and students awaiting the organisation of spiritual lessons at school in accordance with constitutional guarantees (Article 53(4) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland)" he added.
Moreover, due to the fact that the classes will no longer be adapted to the lesson plan of a peculiar class, they will be held early in the morning or late in the afternoon – regardless of the hours of starting and ending the classes of each class. "In effect, this will lead to the request to wait after spiritual lessons to start another classes or to stay after classes, pending catechesis. This can frequently last for more than 1 lesson hour," says Dr. Bernaciński, indicating the discouraging nature of the proposed changes.
The Ordo Iuris Institute warns that making changes can impact spiritual teachers and ethics, reducing their employment dimension. In addition, the proposal to organize spiritual lessons as completely disconnected from the class's agenda and to modify their character towards extracurricular activities is "fundamentally contrary to constitutional guarantees and constitutes discrimination against students".
"It is intended to remove a large proportion of catechestes and clergymen from schools, who, as the past of applications to the Ordo Iuris Institute shows, are frequently the only members of the teaching group who competition school initiatives incompatible with the curriculum and the educational program," we read.
Source: ordoiuris.pl
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