Religious Education in Serbia1 [606472]

Religious Education in Serbia1
BOJAN ALEKSOV
When the government of the Republic of Serbia decided to introduce religious education
into state schools in 2001, Serbia came into line with the neighbouring countries, Croatia
and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where at the request of the dominant religious communitiesconfessional religious education had been part of state school curricula ever since the dis-integration of the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
2In Serbia, religious education was introduced
under chaotic circumstances, shortly after the democratic changes following 5 October2000, to which it was directly linked. The previous regime of Slobodan Milos ˇevic´had
rejected all initiatives seeking the introduction of religious education into state schools,in spite of the numerous concessions and policy changes toward the church made since
the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Confronted as it was by the numerous challenges of tran-
sition, the newly created ideological vacuum and the need to mitigate the radical nationalismthat had marked Serbia in the 1990s, the new democratic government led by Zoran Ðin dic´
decided to introduce religious education in a calculated scheming attempt to ensure the sym-
pathy of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). This decision provoked vehement reactionsfrom the government’s opponents, but its effects and consequences have not so far been thesubject of any serious analysis. This paper is a pioneer venture in that direction.
In the introductory part of my paper I survey the public debate that accompanied the
introduction of religious education in Serbia. I then analyse the underpinning legislation
and the relevant regulations. In the empirical part of my study I look into numerous com-ponents of religious education: the curricula and syllabi, the textbooks, the teachers’ pro-fessional competence, practical problems related to the implementation of theprogramme in the schools, the (lack of) interest on the part of the students and the indirectdiscrimination provoked by the introduction of religious education. I pay particular atten-tion to the rivalry between religious education and the other optional subject, civic edu-cation, this posing the most serious structural problem ensuing from the introduction of
these two subjects. The educational reform that took place in Serbia in 2003 has left the
model and the status of religious education in Serbia unchanged, and in deep discrepancywith the changes that religious education is undergoing in other European countries.Finally, I make recommendations as to how to improve religious education in Serbiawithin the existing legal framework, on the basis of the experience of other countries andthe advances that have been made in religious pedagogy and didactics as well as in theunderstanding of the importance and the role of religious education in schools.
The Introduction of Religious Education
The SOC was the chief proponent of the initiative to introduce religious education into state
schools. The demand that such education should have a confessional character arose out ofReligion, State & Society, Vol. 32, No. 4, December 2004
ISSN 0963-7494 print/ISSN 1465-3974 online/04/040341-23 #2004 Keston Institute
DOI: 10.1080/0963749042000308096

the attitude that ‘there is no such thing as a general concept, let alone a universal religion –
we can have a religious experience exclusively within a specific religion and a specificdenomination’ (S ˇijakovic ´, 2001, p. 23). It was argued that religious education should be
introduced in Serbia on the basis of a number of rights that are provided for in internationalagreements: the right to education; the right to choose one’s own world view; the right topractise a religion; and parents’ rights to bring up their children in accordance with theirreligious beliefs. The discussion thus took place in the context of the existence of religiouseducation in other European countries, but the insistence on the confessional model meant
that a whole range of experiences and solutions from other countries were disregarded.
There were other impulses behind the call for the introduction of religious education: the
crime rate, which was rising everywhere; domestic violence; and the perceived danger fromthe spreading of so-called destructive sects. As in other formerly socialist countries,the dominant argument in favour of religious education was the fact that it had beenundemocratically abolished by the communist authorities after the Second World War(Petition, 2001). Fr Radomir Popovic ´, a professor at the Theological Faculty of the SOC
in Belgrade, even claims that this was a matter of ‘mutual conspiracy and understanding’
between the communist authorities and the ‘sham democracies’ of Western Europe and
America with the aim of ‘promulgating spiritual devastation and creating a spiritual void,predominantly in Orthodox countries’ (Popovic ´, 2001, p. 8).
A number of laypeople and priests in the SOC held that a Christian can be formed only
through confession of faith, participation in church life through religious services, confes-sion of sins and receiving Holy Communion, and that the church should not rely on thesecular state and its educational system to implement its pastoral activities and spiritualmission. According to them, priests and monks ought to conduct their activities through
missionary work in the church itself, just as religious parents ought to ensure a Christian
upbringing for their children by addressing the church rather than secular schools, ministriesand similar institutions. They were outnumbered, however. Those who prevailed were infavour of obligatory religious education: a mandatory option between religious educationand an alternative subject. Unlike the Catholic Church in Croatia, the SOC and other reli-gious communities in Serbia proposed that children who choose not to attend religious edu-cation classes should be offered an alternative subject, related to ethics, and to be designedby educational experts. The optional nature of the subject was disputed by the SOC, which
argued that it should be an option within compulsory classes, on the grounds that children
are unable to make independent decisions about their syllabi and that they will tend not to goto optional classes. In view of the fact that religious education is a new and unfamiliar area,both for the students and for their parents, surveys as a way of assessing public opinion werenot taken into consideration, on the grounds that the views expressed would be ‘not validand incompetent’; church and state thus claimed a monopoly in deciding the matter(Sando, 2000).
Meanwhile numerous nongovernmental organisations and educational experts were
warning that the manner in which religious education was being introduced into state
schools was against the Constitution and the required procedures and standards concerningthe introduction of new subjects into the curriculum, which require a two-year experimentalapplication, followed by an expert analysis. The Board for the Right to Education Free ofReligious and Political Indoctrination ( Odbor za pravo na obrazovanje bez verske i politic ˇke
indoktrinacije ) set up by the association of teachers, associates and researchers of Novi Sad
University led the campaign against the introduction of religious education in state schools,with 90 nongovernmental organisations joining in their activities and supporting their state-
ments.
3The Council of Belgrade University (its highest governing body) all the rectors and
numerous university professors in Serbia, organisations of education experts such as the342 Bojan Aleksov

Educational Forum ( Obrazovni forum ), the Association of Pedagogic Societies of Yugoslavia
(Savez pedagos ˇkih drus ˇtava Jugoslavije ) and others also joined the opposition. Opponents
of religious education in state schools pointed to the fact that religions have been a disunit-ing factor in the Balkans and argued that the introduction of confessional religious edu-cation programmes would mean supporting isolation, reinforcing ethnic divisions andcreating obstacles to social cohesion; they argued for the teaching of the universal valuesof religion, its importance in the life of society and of the individual and its influence onhistorical developments and art in a way that would create a favourable environment for
bringing the children of different confessions closer together (Ðor devic´, 2001). The SOC
categorically denied the possibility of discrimination against children on a confessionalbasis, but their very defence occasionally contained discriminatory language.
4Pointing to
concrete examples in various publications and models of upbringing recommendedby the SOC, some scholars issued warnings about the possibility that discriminationagainst women would enter state schools along with religious education (Sekulic ´, 2001).
At the same time, in SOC publications, the language used in arguing for the introductionof religious education was often discriminatory toward women.
5Some critics, like Pro-
fessor Ljubis ˇa Rajic ´for example, took a practical stance, arguing that Serbian schools
were in a sorry state – classes being attended in two or even three shifts, up to 50 studentsper class, insufficiently trained teaching staff and a lack of teaching equipment – and thatthe introduction of religious education was a deliberate diversion in order to avoid tacklingthe existing problems, which had not been tackled under the previous regime either (Ninc ˇic´,
2000). Professor Ivan Ivic ´articulated the most far-reaching doubts about the introduction of
religious education in Serbia, based on his 35 years of experience in education (Ivic ´, 2000,
p. 172). Arguing that education in Serbia was inefficient, undemocratic and unable to
promote positive values, and pointing to the fact that the postmodern culture of the
young rejects all comprehensive structures and value-systems, Ivic ´warned that religious
education would be either completely ineffective or even negative in its effect. Even theminister of culture, Gas ˇo Knez ˇevic´, argued for postponing the introduction of religious
education for one year, until 2002–03, in order to prepare competent teaching staff andappropriate materials, while the interim period would be used to test various options, soas to avoid problems such as those that occurred after the hasty introduction of religiouseducation in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Knez ˇevic´, 2000).
The debate regarding the justifiability and character of religious education did not prevent
the authorities from taking concrete steps towards the introduction of religious teachings inschools. In March 2001 the Board for Education ( Odbor za obrazovanje ) of the Assembly of
Serbia demanded that religious education be introduced into the curriculum as a regularsubject. A few months later, following talks with the SOC Holy Synod, the late primeminister Zoran Ðin dic´held talks with the representatives of six more religious communities
on 5 July, and announced the introduction of religious teaching in state schools as of Sep-tember. By government decree, these seven religious communities were proclaimed tra-
ditional, thus obtaining the right to religious education in state schools, financed by the
state.
6A state Commission for Religious Education ( Komisija za versku nastavu ) was set
up, consisting of representatives of the religious communities that had been named astraditional and representatives of the Ministries of Education and Religions, who wereauthorised to plan, organise and supervise religious education. The Ministry of Educationwas given the task of preparing an alternative subject, which, while decisions on religiouseducation were being made, had neither a name nor a clearly defined role and content.
The selection of only seven religious communities authorised to implement religious
education in state schools sets a precedent, because the previous law did not discriminate
between different religious communities. A draft law on religion, which proposedReligious Education in Serbia 343

a similar division between traditional and nontraditional religious communities, had been
rejected in 1994 after numerous objections (Sekelj, 2001). Small religious communitieswere particularly affected by the new definition at a time when a fierce public campaignagainst their practices was under way, resulting in numerous physical attacks on their facili-ties and representatives. Moreover, one traditional church, The Romanian Orthodox Church(ROC), which functions officially in the Banat area, was not included among the sevenrecognised religious communities. The exclusion of this church acquired a new dimensionin view of the fact that its members are of the Romanian ethnic minority, whose children are
legally entitled to education in their mother tongue, and therefore also to religious education
as part of the state educational system. The reason for this exclusion is the conflict betweenthe SOC and the ROC that broke out after the ROC appointed its own bishop in Vrs ˇac along-
side the SOC bishop. The SOC then broke off all relations with the ROC, and state decreesdenied the latter the right to implement religious education.
7Among other denominations
that have been left out of the list of traditional religious communities is the Christian Adven-tist Church, which is entitled to offer religious education in Austria, as well as in neighbour-ing Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, provided it is required and there are enough
students to make it practically feasible.
The introduction of an optional subject as an alternative to religious education, which is sup-
posed to promote civic values such as democracy, human rights and tolerance, also came underharsh criticism; primarily because the new subject, which was later named ‘civic education’,was being introduced hastily and with no previous public debate. The Belgrade Centre forHuman Rights declared that an option couched in these terms implied that religious educationdid not promote democracy, human rights and tolerance. Opponents of the introduction ofreligious education therefore called for a boycott of ‘civic education’ as well.
In September 2001 the two Ministries published the brochure Religious Instruction in
Schools in Serbia (Verska nastava u s ˇkolama u Srbiji ), with the aim of presenting the
newly introduced subject and helping students and their parents to decide between thetwo optional subjects, religious education and civic education. The reason for the ‘reinstate-ment of religious education’ is said to be the parents’ right ‘to provide their children with anupbringing in accordance with their own religious beliefs’, which derives from the interna-tionally-recognised right to freedom of religion and the 1990 UN Convention on Children’sRights. The brochure emphasises that religious education is a natural and indispensable part
of the educational system in practically all democratic countries and that research has
revealed that more than 87 per cent of citizens are religious, with 82 per cent of secondaryschool students wishing to attend religious education classes. The basic goals and content ofreligious education are briefly outlined, with a special emphasis on the idea that ‘there is noconflict between science and faith, as nearly 90 per cent of scientists are religious’. Thearguments in the brochure came in for severe criticism, mostly concerning the figuresand percentages it abounds in. Sociologists warned that data on confessional affiliationdo not necessarily imply anything about the respondents’ religious feelings (Gredelj,
2002). The percentages referring to secondary school students and to religious scientists
were criticised as unrealistic and were compared with the findings of the research conductedby the independent Centre for Study of Alternatives ( Centar za prouc ˇavanje alternativa )i n
Belgrade that reveal that citizens’ opinions on religious education are mixed and inconsist-ent and that, with considerable generalisation, the conclusion can be drawn that one third ofcitizens are in favour of the introduction of religious education, one third are against it andthe remaining third are either undecided or uninformed (Mihailovic ´, 2001; Gredelj, 2002).
The internationally renowned scholars Ljubis ˇa Rajic ´and Laslo Sekelj denied the assertion
that the right to freedom of religion and the International Convention on Children’s Rights
implied the right to religious education, because these undertakings do not bind a state344 Bojan Aleksov

to introduce religious education in schools but in fact insist on the protection of children
from influences encouraging religious or any other kind of divisions (Rajic ´, 2001; Sekelj,
2001). According to their interpretation of these international conventions, the only obli-gation of the state is to ensure freedom for religious education – that is, to not impede it.
After the results of a poll in September 2001 that revealed a relatively low number of chil-
dren and their parents opting for religious education, the Holy Synod of Orthodox Bishopsaccused the minister of education Knez ˇevic´, the officials of his Ministry and the school auth-
orities (principals and pedagogues
8) of having taken advantage of their positions and, con-
trary to all the previously achieved agreements and the basic democratic principle of equal
treatment of religious education and the alternative subject of civic education, of conductingan orchestrated campaign against religious education and oppression of the parents and stu-dents who were in favour of this education (Informativna, 2001). The bishops of the Catho-lic Church in Serbia joined in this protest, accusing the school authorities of discriminationagainst Catholics and propaganda against religious education (Bjelajac, 2001). Apart fromsporadic cases of misunderstandings in schools, the opting procedure in the schools couldhardly justify expressions such as ‘orchestrated campaign’ or ‘oppression’. Yet it was
clear that the Ministry of Education had manifested resistance to the model that had been
imposed by a political decision on the part of the prime minister against the opinion ofall educational experts and institutions. The results of a survey conducted among elemen-tary school teachers also testified that the majority of the teaching staff thought that confes-sional religious education ought to be replaced by a different model of religious education(Todorovic ´, 2002).
Legislation in the Field of Religious Education
According to laws adopted in the course of the same year, 2001, religious teachers in
secondary schools are required to have completed theological education at universitylevel, whereas those teaching in elementary schools are required to have completed theolo-gical education at ‘higher school’ level.
9Schoolteachers with additional theological training
are also allowed to give religious instruction. The criteria of ‘additional theological training’are not specified, which leads to the conclusion that they are to be set by the churches. Even-tually, the Ministry of Education received the lists of teachers from religious communities
and its task was only to publish it. According to this list, religious education in Serbia is
implemented by some 1500 teachers, divided as follows by confession: 1200 Orthodox;over 200 Catholic; 50 Slovak Evangelical; 40 Muslim; 19 Reformed; 5 from the EvangelicalChristian Church of Augsburg Confession; and one Jewish. According to the law, religiousteachers sign an annual contract with the school in which they work, granting them equallabour rights with the teachers of other subjects, while the time limit of the contractgives the churches the possibility of influencing the choice of religious teachers and ofreplacing those they deem unfit. The contract stipulates that religious teachers have the
same rights and obligations as other teachers regarding the school’s regular activities.
The school pedagogues and authorised representative of the religious community areentitled to visit classes. Attendance records are kept in the same way as for the othersubjects. Work is not marked according to the normal numerical standards, but with descrip-tive marks (distinction, good and satisfactory); these marks are entered in class registers andstudents’ reports, but do not influence their average grade. Optional activities andsupplementary activities are also allowed, as well as the use of specific teaching materialsthat the schools are to provide for the teachers.
The Ministry of Education published the syllabi for religious education for the first year
in elementary and secondary schools for all the confessions concerned. The syllabusReligious Education in Serbia 345

contains the objectives, tasks and content of religious education and brief instructions on
how the programmes are to be implemented. These programmes are entirely designed bythe religious communities, without the participation of educational experts or experiencedteachers. There are no major differences in the objectives and tasks of the various denomi-nations, but there are differences in the content and in the sophistication of production andpresentation. The programmes have already been subject to critical analysis by experts whohave pointed out disregard of didactic and methodical principles, terminological impreci-sion and inadequacy for the age of the students (Dac ˇic´, 2002, pp. 51–70).
So far the Ministry of Education has not received any analysis of or research on the effects
and results of religious education, in spite of the fact that it has been over two years since itwas introduced into elementary and secondary schools. Only occasionally do some findingsor information about specific issues appear in the press. The representatives of the religiouscommunities did not accept a proposal for conducting a common evaluation of religiouseducation and civic education under the auspices of UNESCO, UNICEF and the OpenSociety Fund.
10The explanation was that it was too early for such an evaluation, especially
if this job was to be given to experts from abroad, although the research and data processing
on the national sample were supposed to be conducted by the commercial public opinion
poll agency ‘Strategic Marketing’ from Belgrade. The religious communities refuse toconduct a comprehensive evaluation of religious education, and the Ministries of Religionsand Education are also reluctant to share most of their data. In order to proceed with thisresearch I therefore had to resort to the ethnographic method of data collecting. The follow-ing analysis is based on my personal insights acquired by visiting religious education classesin 15 schools throughout Serbia and on discussions with several dozen religious teachers,representatives of the most numerous confessions, school principals, officials of the
Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religions, teachers, parents and students. The
governing principle in the selection of the schools was one of representative sample, andI therefore visited urban and rural schools, schools in religiously homogenous and in multi-confessional environments, schools with a few dozen students and those with a couple ofthousand, elementary and secondary schools, grammar schools and vocational schools.The observations that follow apply exclusively to religious education, although they needto be placed in the larger context of the Serbian educational system, which, on the thresholdof reform, confronts a host of ideological dilemmas and is suffering severely from unsolved
financial and personnel problems.
Perspectives on Religious Education in Practice
The common denominator in all the opinions I obtained in the course of this research – from
teachers, religious teachers and other interested observers – is the conclusion that religiouseducation was introduced into school syllabi too hastily. While the decision to introducereligious education was taken at the eleventh hour, the plans and programmes arrived
even later, after religious education had already begun as a new school subject. School prin-
cipals were frustrated by not having received more detailed instructions after the govern-ment decree. Secondary schools, which notoriously suffer from lack of space, were notable to solve the problem of timetables and implementation of the teaching schedules.
The Catholic priest Josip Temunovic ´from Subotica believes that religious education was
launched without the necessary preparation, without trained teachers and in a school systemthat had previously been criticised as inadequate and dysfunctional, all of which will havedisastrous consequences. Temunovic ´warns that under such circumstances, religious edu-
cation in schools hardly achieves any objective, and that more is lost by the fact that attend-
ance at parish catechism classes has decreased, especially among Catholics, whose rate346 Bojan Aleksov

of attendance used to be very high. Tadej Vojnovic ´, professor at the Catechist-Theological
Institute ( Katehetsko-teolos ˇki institut ) of the Subotica Catholic Diocese, expressed similar
views, fearing that religious education in schools would suffer the fate of Marxism, a for-merly mandatory school subject that the students deemed boring and unpleasant. Vojnovic ´
suspected that religion, like Marxism, had been introduced for political and ideological
reasons. Instead he proposed that confessional religious education remain within thechurch sphere, while schools should provide teaching about the fundamental concepts offaith and the main world religions. Branka Josimov, the pedagogue of Subotica Grammar
School and teacher of civic education, identifies the major problem in introducing two
new subjects as the fact that parents, students and other interested parties were neverasked for their views. In her opinion religious education was superimposed in an accordbetween church and state and civic education was introduced only as an inevitable alterna-tive, although there had been even fewer initiatives in support of the latter. Vesna Fila, prin-cipal of the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school in Belgrade, also thinks that theintroduction of religious education was effected hastily, with no preparation for the students,their parents or the teaching staff, who, in general, had not participated in the debate. Models
from other countries (Germany, Austria and Croatia) were transferred and applied, over-
looking the specific circumstances in Serbia, although there had been suggestions for differ-ent solutions. Her school is particularly satisfied with their religious teacher, but sheexpressed doubts about the competence of religious teachers in other schools, whichcould have been avoided by appropriate training, of the kind that was provided in thecase of civic education. According to Fila, the recently published textbooks are alsoinadequate. She considers religious education essential, because it provides the groundworkand basic knowledge about the fundamentals of civilisation, but warns that the main teach-
ings of other religions should also be studied. A particularly problematic feature, in her
opinion, is that not the slightest attempt has been made by the state organs to conduct anevaluation of religious education in schools.
The largest religious community that did not obtain the right to religious education in the
schools, the Adventist Church, issued instructions for parents to enrol their children in civiceducation and to continue sending them to religious education at their churches, where text-books and trained teachers are available. This church had successfully organised religiouseducation during the communist period, and they believe the degree of tolerance was greater
then. After the introduction of religious education in public school there has been some mis-
trust towards Adventist children for opting for civic education, although no seriousinstances of discrimination or other incidents have been recorded.
The Syllabi and Textbooks
The appearance of the religious education syllabi was delayed; the religious communities
had submitted them in various forms and their processing and standardisation had therefore
been a lengthy process. In view of the fact that the selection of textbooks and religious
teachers rests with the religious communities, the only remaining task for the Ministry ofEducation is to approve them and prepare the former for publication. None of the officialsof the Ministry of Education is an expert in the area of religious education; the Ministry istherefore not competent to analyse the various syllabi. An illustration of the (absence of)participation of the Ministry of Education in this process is the statement made by a districtMinistry of Education official who said that it was the Ministry of Religions, in cooperationwith the local diocese, which had exclusive authority in the area of religious education.
According to Dimitrije Dimitrijevic ´, editor for religious education in the state Institute
for Textbooks and Teaching Materials ( Zavod za udz ˇbenike i nastavna sredstva ), theReligious Education in Serbia 347

publication of all the textbooks for religious education was delayed. The Orthodox
Catechism for the second year came out nearly one year late. The textbooks were latebecause of the decision that new textbooks should be produced and that the textbooksshould be examined by representatives of the other religious communities in order toavoid content that could provoke religious intolerance. This was a remarkable moveforward compared to the situation in Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
11In
contrast to the situation regarding other subjects, in the case of religious education theInstitute for Textbooks functions exclusively as a technical service, and has no editorial
authority whatsoever, not even regarding the illustrations and technical features, in spite
of the fact that it covers all the publishing costs. It was agreed that the Institute should dothe proofreading, and the Institute considered that the translation of the textbook for theIslamic community was badly done, even unintelligible, and using non-standard terms.The Islamic community, in turn, published the textbook for the second grade of elemen-tary school independently, which was against the law. The Islamic religious teachers inSandz ˇak have also been using the textbook for Islamic religious education in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, ignoring the legal norm that all textbooks used in public schools must be
published by the above-mentioned Institute. The textbooks for Orthodox religious edu-
cation are translated into Roma, although it is not known where they are being used,what their circulation is and whether they have been translated into the appropriatedialect. The Catholic religious teaching materials, written in Croatian, are also publishedin Hungarian, Ruthenian and Ukrainian. Once again, it has not been established whichschools use the Ruthenian and Ukrainian translations, nor indeed whether there was aneed for the duplication of translations, printing and circulation, since the same ethniccommunity is in question. Other (Protestant) denominations have not submitted any text-
books at all, so the classes are either conducted without them, or using textbooks that
have not been approved by the Commission for Religious Education and printed bythe Institute.
It is obvious that the Commission for Religious Education is trying, through its activities,
to build up the image of religious education as a serious and important element within theeducational system. However, there are two weak points to this strategy. The first is thetypical and widespread belief that textbooks are the most important, if not the only,element in teaching. While energy and attention have been concentrated on textbooks,
activities such as teacher training, teachers’ manuals, seminars, and working with parents
and the teaching staff have been neglected. The second weak point is that the hastily pre-pared textbooks often contain flaws, the gravest of these being that they do not necessarilycorrespond with the students’ ages, educational levels or cognitive abilities. Virtually allthe religious teachers agree on this point. Furthermore, as a rule religious teachers do notadhere to the prescribed curriculum, which they consider to be too comprehensive andunsuitable for the age of the children and their previous knowledge. Many SOC religiousteachers are critical of the fact that one person is, practically, in charge of the curriculum
and syllabi, and is also the author of the textbook. Some particular lessons are very difficult
to understand, because they refer to ongoing theological disputes. What is more, there is nodifference between the textbooks for grammar schools and for three-year vocationalschools, in spite of the fact that there are enormous differences in the students’ previousknowledge and levels of interest. Some have commented that the religious education text-books which have appeared so far do not relate to the content of other school subjects andthat they pay no particular attention to the students’ life experiences and the everyday realitythey face. Furthermore, in the course of the preparation of the curricula and syllabi and of
the few existing textbooks, parents’ and students’ reasons for opting for this subject,
revealed by several research studies, have not been taken into consideration.348 Bojan Aleksov

Religious Teachers
Another problem, which is more serious than the lack of textbooks or the delays in their
publication, is that there exist no other teaching resources; in this respect we may contrast
civic education, which abounds in teachers’ manuals and supplementary materials. Reli-
gious teachers thus have to rely exclusively on their personal resources, creativity andinitiative, and. this is a demanding expectation, in view of the fact that the majority ofthe teaching staff are insufficiently prepared and trained. Religious teachers themselvesadmit that they lack training and education for the implementation of the prescribed curri-culum, that they are not familiar with the principles of preparing lessons and presentation ofthe teaching material, and that they often find themselves torn between fulfilling curriculumobjectives and wider educational tasks expected of them. They alone have to cope with the
selection of teaching methods and procedures, and the lack of teaching equipment and
materials.
The regulations concerning the mandatory education level requirements for religious
teachers cannot practically be fulfilled in most of Serbia. In the Vranje SOC diocese,for example, only four or five individuals have the required qualifications. The situationis similar in the Nis ˇ, Miles ˇevo, Timok, Ras ˇka-Prizren and other SOC dioceses. According
to a priest of the Subotica Catholic diocese, a mere ten per cent of religious teacherspossess the required qualifications, and while the others have undergone supplementary
instruction, this has not included training in pedagogy or didactics, with the main criteria
for selection being, according to church figures, loyalty to the church and personal piety.Although the Ministry of Education and the Commission for Religious Education insistedon the organisation of seminars for further training of religious teachers, the exchange ofexperiences and, above all, introducing teachers to didactic approaches to education, suchinitiatives were in fact left to the individual religious communities and SOC dioceses.Uniquely, religious teachers have not been given the accredited handbooks for professionalteacher training published by the Ministry of Education, nor was their professional pro-
motion envisaged in the project for the reform of the educational system.
12In Austria,
where the SOC has been implementing Orthodox education for ten years already,financed by the Austrian Ministry for Education and Culture, seminars for Orthodox reli-gious teachers are organised on a regular basis, addressing didactic topics and methods ofintercultural and interreligious teaching. In Serbia, even in the largest and richest Ortho-dox dioceses, such as the Banat, only annual meetings of religious teachers are held; nosupplementary training or seminars are organised. Nor have there been any meetings ofreligious teachers at the interconfessional level, although practically all the religious com-
munities that are legally entitled to religious education are active in the Banat. The only
exception seems to have been a meeting of religious education teachers of the Orthodoxdiocese of Bac ˇka and the Catholic diocese of Subotica in Novi Sad on 1 March 2003,
organised by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religion. Among the Ortho-dox dioceses, Belgrade and Branic ˇevo have taken the initiative in organising seminars for
religious teachers. A participant in one of these seminars, a religious teacher from theBelgrade Orthodox diocese, noted that the seminar helped him realise that a child’s atten-tion span is no longer than a quarter of an hour, and that he has to plan a variety of activi-
ties in order to maintain children’s attention throughout the class. Other religious
teachers, meanwhile, complained that at seminars they were usually lectured ex-cathedra ,
while little attention was paid to indispensable methodical skills, psychology and peda-gogy. At the seminar in Novi Sad it was proposed that religious teachers be organisedon a territorial rather a confessional basis, so that they could resolve common problemswith concerted efforts.Religious Education in Serbia 349

The prevailing opinion in educational circles is that the definition of qualification require-
ments for religious teachers should comprise a pedagogical dimension, complementary tothe dimension of theological expertise, which would bring their qualifications as close aspossible to those of other teachers. Religious teachers should take into considerationdevelopments in educational sciences (pedagogy, didactics and psychology) as well asparents’ expectations and the general atmosphere in the school and the social environment.Without an analysis of the concrete situation and of the students’ educational and develop-mental needs, religious teachers are left to rely on their intuition, to adapt to the situation
and improvise according to their personal resources.
Another unsolved issue concerning the status of religious teachers is the validation of
diplomas obtained in schools and institutions abroad. Furthermore, nothing is being doneto integrate the educational institutions that various religious communities in Serbia haveset up to train future religious teachers. Only three large religious communities (Orthodox,Catholic and Muslim) have recently set up schools of this type; meanwhile the entire area ofreligious pedagogy remains underdeveloped in comparison with Bulgaria, for example,where there are more than 100 reference books covering this area: none of the other
religious communities that have been given the right to implement religious education
in schools in Serbia has schools for training teachers.
There have been complaints in many schools that the religious communities fail to
appoint religious teachers in a timely manner at the beginning of the school year. Neitherthe law nor teachers’ manuals provide for competitions or any other customary schoolactivities in the sphere of religious education. Religious teachers generally take part onlyin the organisation of the celebration of St Sava’s Day. Their integration into theworking environment is further hampered by the fact that, because of the small number
of religious education lessons, they usually teach in several schools and have little oppor-
tunity to become acquainted with the other teachers or to establish links with them.School principals practically never visit religious education classes, on the grounds ofnon-interference with the autonomy of religious education. Few are the schools wherethe teachers of civic education and the religious teacher mutually visit each other’sclasses, although this could have beneficial effects in the exchange of experiences, thedecreasing of tensions between the two subjects and the motivation of the students.
The Belgrade Orthodox diocese, which has established a special office to coordinate all
activities related to religious education in schools, sets a positive example. It has a super-
visory board, publishes supplementary materials for teachers, and has organised severalseminars, while all the Belgrade religious teachers meet on a regular basis with the coordi-nator for religious education, who has no other duties apart from this. There are 103 reli-gious teachers in Belgrade, 85 of whom are laypeople, and over half of whom arewomen. The board for the selection of religious teachers in Belgrade mainly choosesyoung religious teachers who have recently graduated from the Faculty of Theology orthe Institute for Catechism of the SOC, often deploying them according to their place of
residence, even in the schools they used to attend and whose teaching staff they are familiar
with. The experience of the board is that the young religious teachers are full of enthusiasmat the beginning of their working careers.
On the other hand, in rural areas and in small towns it is priests who usually provide reli-
gious education. Lay religious teachers in the SOC consider that the priests involved inteaching do not possess suitable pedagogic and professional expertise and that they are over-whelmed by other obligations. They believe that religious education ought to be in the handsof lay teachers who have recently graduated from the Faculty of Theology, which has been
reformed, old juridical principles being replaced by interpretations of the Holy Fathers
translated into the Serbian language (contemporary patristic theology). If a religious350 Bojan Aleksov

teacher has other obligations in the religious community, apart from teaching, then he or she
is likely to be only a visitor in the school. The prevalent opinion in many schools is thereforethat the religious teacher should have no other obligations if the set objectives are to beachieved and the number of interested students maintained. The numerous obligations ofpriests in their parishes bring into question the purpose and the feasibility of their parallelactivities as religious teachers; in rural areas it is often normal for them to be absent fromclasses. In Uz ˇice, the priest who was appointed to teach religious education was later
assigned to a parish and stopped coming to classes, while the newly appointed teacher
never appeared. The complaints of some schools in the Nis ˇOrthodox diocese were for-
warded both to the relevant department in the Ministry of Education and to the diocese,but the problems still remain. The religious communities themselves do not insist on thepriority of teaching. When I visited Novi Pazar practically all the teachers of the Islamicreligious community were absent because they were attending the funeral service for theformer president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic ´. Religious communities
often change their religious teacher, which provokes negative reactions among the studentsand the school teaching staff, because interest in religious education declines and the con-
tinuity of the teaching process is lost. In many schools, classes are not held regularly, but
once a fortnight or even more seldom.
In September 2003 the Vranje Orthodox diocese removed from the list of religious tea-
chers deacon Vladimir Savic ´, after he had testified in court against the bishop of Vranje,
Pahomije, who was charged with paedophilia. This deacon, who graduated in theology in2001, used to teach in the School of Economics and Chemistry in Vranje (Stojkovic ´,
2003). As a substitute, the diocese appointed a pensioner, which is against the law. Asimilar thing occurred in the School of Economics in Nis ˇ, where, according to the pedago-
gue of the school, a handsome, intelligent young religious teacher who had been attracting
many students was replaced by an elderly city priest whose classes only three studentscontinued to attend, while the staff felt cheated, because no one had consulted them. Theschools express their discontent because the Ministry of Education merely approves thelist of religious teachers proposed by the religious communities. The religious communitiesassign religious teachers from their list to a particular school; while the school’s only duty isto make sure that the deployed candidates meet the legal requirements for working in theschool. The schools say that these arrangements put them in an inferior position, and that
the law provides neither for the possibility of complaint nor for legal protection of the
religious teacher.
In the Orthodox and Catholic Churches there are additional tensions, between the lay tea-
chers and the clergy. The Catholic Church even imported several priests to Subotica in orderto occupy teaching posts there. There is a widespread view among priests of both confes-sions that lay teachers should not teach religious education on the grounds that they arenot competent to do so. Clerics secure the better posts in urban secondary schools for them-selves, while deploying the lay, usually female, teachers in elementary schools. This prac-
tice is most evident in the Islamic religious community. On the other hand, the vast majority
of students, parents and teachers think that that they can establish better contacts with layteachers.
Opting for Religious Education and its Accessibility
Schools have many reservations about the way in which students opt for religious education
rather than civic education. The leaflet prepared by the Commission for Religious Education
for the purpose of selection between the two subjects is not detailed enough and does not
provide sufficient information for making a choice. In 2003 leaflets were not distributedReligious Education in Serbia 351

in Novi Pazar, so the selection was made in schools according to the confession to which the
students belonged. Biljana Dimitrijevic ´, principal of the Third Belgrade Grammar School,
thinks that students are unprepared for choosing between the two alternative subjects. Theyoften opt for one of them to spite their parents; many change subjects during the school year.Dimitrijevic ´believes that students in her school are generally guided by information
obtained through the media or by word of mouth from their peers. Religious teachersadmit that it is difficult to opt for an unfamiliar subject. Parents are not given enough infor-mation and they also find it difficult to make a choice. Secondary students are not eager to
study either subject, on the grounds that both of them are boring.
The percentages of students opting for religious education vary. Vojislav Milovanovic ´,
the minister of religion, says that in the first year 50 per cent of elementary school studentsand 20 per cent of secondary school students opt for religious education, although it is notorganised for all of them because of technical, personnel and other problems (Milovanovic ´,
2001). Two independent analyses report the figures of 36.2 and 39 per cent for secondaryschool (Bjelajac, 2001; Gredelj, 2002). In the second year, according to figures issued bythe Ministry of Education, approximately 49 per cent of elementary school students opt
for religious education (there are no data for secondary schools). The highest rate, fluctuat-
ing between 80 and 100 per cent, is in the Ras ˇka/Sandz ˇak region, primarily among Muslim
children. This is followed by the western and central Serbian regions, then by Belgrade andVojvodina; while the lowest interest rate is in southern and eastern Serbia. According tothese data, an average of 50 per cent of students in Serbia opt for religious education;this is still far below the average figure recorded in neighbouring countries with whichSerbia shares a common past.
13More students opt for religious education in rural areas
of Serbia, although there are exceptions. In the area of Vranje, interest in both religious edu-
cation and civic education is remarkably low, and the numerous local Roma population does
not opt for religious education at all.
In most rural areas, religious education has not been organised in the remote branches of
schools, for example in the eight branch classes of the Sveti Sava school in Pirot. None ofthe school authorities has attempted to solve the problem of non-existent religion classes forrural children. Meanwhile the church authorities say that they are respecting the minimumnumber of ten children per class and do not therefore organise religious education classes inthe villages. The problem in the rural branches of local schools is that they often have only
one classroom, which has to be divided when two alternative subjects are offered. The situ-
ation in Novi Pazar is particularly bad, with schools working in three shifts because of thenotorious lack of space; here the introduction of new subjects and the division of pupils on aconfessional basis create enormous practical problems.
The Commission for Religious Education decided in principle that religious education
should be offered even when the number of children is below the legal minimum; yetthis decision is being implemented with great difficulty. Technical problems and a shortageof eligible teachers mean that small religious communities, as well as large religious com-
munities when they represent a minority, are not in a position to organise religious edu-
cation, and they therefore fear that they will be subject to indirect discrimination. Thepoor organisation and poverty of the Muslim (predominantly Roma) population in areasoutside the Sandz ˇak mean that the Islamic religious community is unable to organise reli-
gious education in southern Serbia or in Vojvodina. The Slovak Evangelical Church doesnot organise religious education in many places inhabited by its members, not even inthe town of Kovac ˇica, with its large Slovak population. The children of minority confes-
sions often attend civic education classes or in some cases even Orthodox religious edu-
cation, because their parents do not want to separate them from their peers. In Sombor
all the children from different schools who wish to attend Catholic religious education352 Bojan Aleksov

are brought together in one school, but under such circumstances it is difficult to keep an
accurate record of the students and their attendance rate. In all the secondary schools inSubotica the Reformed Church can gather only one class of students interested in religiouseducation. In Belgrade, Nis ˇ, Smederevo and many other places, at least one Catholic or
Muslim student can be found in every class, but there is no religious education for thesedenominations.
Obviously, simple statistics regarding the implementation of religious education are not
and should not be the only criteria for its evaluation. Religious teachers see absenteeism and
lack of motivation on the students’ part as the biggest problem. In the grammar school in
Pirot 30 students opted for religion classes, but 80 per cent of them never attended. Thedecrease of interest among students is accounted for by incongruous timetables, excessiveworkloads and low motivation for a subject that is not graded numerically. The religiousteachers see the lack of textbooks, appropriate space and work schedules as a discouragingfactor. The students often transfer from one optional subject to the other, especially if theycome up against problems in one of them. The religious communities themselves have con-tributed to the scattering of students by their tardiness in appointing religious teachers. In
several vocational schools I visited in Nis ˇand Belgrade (the School of Mechanical Engin-
eering, the High School of Economics and the School for Hotel Management and Catering),the students were particularly unmotivated and undisciplined. Asked why they had enrolledin religious education at all, if they had no interest in or motivation for the subject, theyresponded that it was because they were Serbs.
In other places, however, the picture is different. In the Miroslav Jovanovic ´Cerovac
elementary school in Vrc ˇin religious education was introduced in all classes on the princi-
pal’s initiative, with 80 per cent of the students in attendance; all the parents of the first-year
students opted for religious education, so that civic education was not introduced at all. The
prevailing opinion in this school is that religious education has a positive impact both on thestudents’ behaviour and on the teaching staff, while the parents have nothing but praise forit. Whether out of genuine desire, or in order to avoid having their children stand out asdifferent, Muslim parents have also opted for Orthodox religious education. The principalis opposed to the introduction of the alternative subject of civic education because the exist-ence of this subject implies that the students who attend religious education are not beingeducated in civic values. The religious teacher’s classes are based on a plan that he prepares
himself. He gives the students numerical marks in pencil, because he feels that these encou-
rage motivation and responsibility in the children, but when it comes to final grades, heobserves the rules and assesses their knowledge descriptively. He thinks that religious tea-chers must understand that religion is a school subject like all others and behave accord-ingly, keeping strict attendance records and thus raising the students’ awareness of therelevance of the choice they have made.
Rivalry between the Two Subjects and Conflicts in the School
The gravest structural problem in the current teaching scheme for religious education and
civic education is that they have been conceived as alternative subjects in the schoolsystem, although their content, tasks and objectives do not present alternatives (alternativescould be, for example, confessional and non-confessional religious education, or ethicsfrom religious and nonreligious perspectives). In this respect it is also evident that the pro-vision for obligatory choice between religious education and civic education has no pro-fessional but an exclusively political basis. Furthermore, because of the compulsory
alternative nature of the subjects, which forces the student to choose one of the two, the
proponents of both options see the other as competition. In a situation where the numberReligious Education in Serbia 353

of schoolchildren is decreasing every year for demographic reasons, teachers are facing the
possibility of losing their jobs. Some of them are undergoing professional training for thenewly introduced subject of civic education, and they tend to manifest resentment againstreligious education, which is being introduced into schools as an additional subjectthat requires new teaching staff. Negative attitudes among the teachers of both subjectsoften result in fierce competition for students and for their parents’ approval of their subject.
Another cause of rivalry between the two subjects is the insurmountable antagonism
between the SOC and the Ministry of Education. The prevailing attitude in the SOC is
that the state’s role should be confined to financing the implementation of religious
education, while the church should be free to decide on all other aspects of the subject(Lavrentije, 2002).
Republika Srpska is cited as an example where the results of religious education, accord-
ing to Orthodox Bishop Lavrentije of S ˇabac and Valjevo, are encouraging and pleasing for
the church. Yet my own modest insight into the problems related to the implementation ofreligious education in Serbia coincides with the critical attitudes expressed about theimplementation of religious education in Republika Srpska, the negative experiences of
which were unfortunately not taken into consideration when religion education was intro-
duced in Serbia.
14The most serious objection by the SOC concerning the implementation
of religious education is that the choice between religious education and civic education ismade at the beginning of each school year and not for all the eight years of elementary andfour years of secondary school at once. Some schools have received objections because thestudents and their parents are supposed to make their decision in the presence of the schoolprincipal or pedagogue, without the religious teacher.
There are complaints about the inequality of the subjects. The fact that it is schoolteachers
who usually teach civic education means that students tend to opt for it more often.
Although problems of timetabling have now become less frequent, complaints from reli-gious teachers are still heard concerning the fact that in some schools religious teachingis scheduled as the seventh class, or as an early morning class, and thus given marginalstatus. The response to religious education in schools is particularly problematic in thesouth of Serbia. In many communities, the teaching staff resent the religious teachers,who, in turn, avoid entering the teachers’ room. The religious teachers are not invited toattend teachers’ meetings. In many schools there have been objections because religious
teachers come to classes wearing their clerical garb.
An uproar broke out during a lecture on sects being given by a local priest at the invitation
of one of the schools in Pirot when he spoke of ‘civic education’ as one such sect. In 2002the Nis ˇOrthodox diocese circulated 50,000 copies of a leaflet (published by the Lipovac
Monastery), which also depicted civic education as a sect. The Holy Synod of thebishops of the SOC refers to it as the ‘so-called civic education’ and often accuses the min-ister of education and educational experts of undermining the spiritual and moral values ofthe people, defining their reforms towards modern education as ‘perfidious brainwashing’
(Informativna, 2002). In the first two after the introduction of the two new subjects, religious
teachers in the Ras ˇka and Prizren diocese and the Islamic community in Sandz ˇak used to tell
students that those who opted for religious education could not attend civic educationclasses. In one school in Belgrade the religious teacher established very good cooperationwith the civic education teacher, who gave him some instruction in teaching methodologyand methods for coping with other practical problems. He therefore decided to acquire somefurther training at the seminars for civic education teachers that she was attending.However, he was advised by the SOC not to do so on the grounds that they were
harmful. Some religious teachers do not record their classes in the school register, saying
that they are ignorant in practical school matters, which poses a serious problem for the354 Bojan Aleksov

school administration; at the same time, they blame the school authorities if children fail to
enrol for their subject. In the schools around Nis ˇ, religious teachers refuse to participate in
any extra-curricular activities; they do not cooperate with the teaching staff and do not allowany of them to visit their lessons. The priest in the village of Mramorak threatened parentsthat he would not bless water if they did not opt for religious education for their children.
The implementation of religious teaching in schools is also related to the display of reli-
gious symbols and the performing of religious rituals, which has become common in manyschools in Serbia and a cause of suspicion, especially in multiconfessional environments. In
Novi Pazar, school principals do not approve of Muslim schoolmistresses wearing veils at
work. However, the Supreme Court of Serbia ruled that to forbid them to do so was a breachof their civil rights, and ordered a school in Novi Pazar which had suspended a femaleteacher from work to reinstate her to her teaching position.
During my research, and contrary to some widespread expectations, I did not obtain any
indication that the introduction of religious education in multinational communities inVojvodina and Sandz ˇak had led to any recorded serious problems or interconfessional dis-
putes. Indeed, the curricula prescribe that three or four classroom periods per school year be
dedicated to acquainting students with the teachings and beliefs of other religious commu-
nities. This is not observed in practice, however, and furthermore, the existing textbooks donot contain this type of information, nor do religious teachers study it during theirprofessional training; they do not therefore feel competent to teach things they themselvesare not very familiar with. Nevertheless, I came across some positive examples, for examplein Prijepoljska Z ˇupa, where the Orthodox religious teacher conducted the religion class,
substituting for the absent Muslim religious teacher.
Although the debate that went on in the press in Serbia prior to the introduction of reli-
gious education predicted possible conflicts among students, it seems that the students took
no heed of this. The engagement and interest of their parents is even weaker than their own,the parents’ attitude towards religious education being as indifferent as it is towards othersubjects. The parents I talked to said that they had decided to enrol their children in religiouseducation because they wanted them to know something about their ‘roots’ or national tra-dition. Generally they were not practising believers, but people who wished their children tobe ‘properly’ brought up, to be informed about ‘their’ or ‘the Serbian’ religion, or evenpeople who deem that ‘religious education cannot do them any harm’.
Reopening the Question of the Status of Religious Education
During the period of my research (March–November 2003) the Ministry of Education of
Serbia prepared a new law on elementary and secondary education which reflected the strat-egy of the educational reforms promoted by this Ministry and which included alterations inthe status of religious education. Students were to be given the possibility of choosingamong at least four alternative subjects, two of which would be religious education and
civic education, while the others would be offered by the various schools depending on
their possibilities. Subjects such as computer training, creative writing, environmental edu-cation and a second foreign language were suggested. Students would thus choose twooptional subjects, which would not have to be either religious education or civic education.All the religious teachers and SOC clergy I spoke to fiercely criticised this model, fearingthat the parents would opt for the ‘more useful’ subjects. In an official statement the SOCclaimed that the proposed educational reform was not beneficial for society and accused theMinistry of Education of striving ‘to create a post-modern child, a sort of a clone, which is a
crime against education and spirituality that should be incriminated’. The Holy Synod of the
SOC sent a written demand to the Assembly of Serbia that the draft law be immediatelyReligious Education in Serbia 355

withdrawn (Informativna, 10 June 2003). Simultaneously, the Novi Sad citizens’ associ-
ation Forum iuris addressed a petition to the Constitutional Court of Serbia seeking a recon-
sideration of the constitutionality of the introduction of religious education in state schools,pointing out that it represented a breach of the constitutional principles of separation ofchurch and state, the equality of citizens and the equal status of religious communities(Beta, 2003).
In a sudden turn of events, while education reform was being discussed in parliament, the
patriarch of the SOC and the other members of the Holy Synod met the minister of edu-
cation, Knez ˇevic´, who then lent his support to the existing model of religious education
in state schools (Informativna, 4 July 2003). It was agreed that the mandatory alternativesof religious education and civic education would not be affected by the introduction ofoptional subjects in the course of educational reform. In return, the representatives of thereligious communities backed the reform. In their joint statement, they upheld the agree-ment that the late prime minister Zoran Ðin dic´had reached with the representatives of
the religious communities, thus reiterating that a political accord was the foundation for reli-gious education in public schools. On the same day, the minister of religions, Milovanovic ´,
held a press conference, questioning the petition submitted by Forum iuris and referring to
the 2002 census, in which 95 per cent of the citizens of Serbia declared themselves asbelievers, with only 0.5 per cent atheists and 4.5 per cent undecided or undeclared.
15
These results were interpreted as a clear signal to the state to respect the religious rightsof its citizens.
The Constitutional Court of Serbia had the last word about religious education in early
November 2003, when it ruled that the legal regulations according to which religious edu-cation and its alternative subject had been introduced into schools complied with the Con-
stitution, thus rejecting the demands contained in the petition from Forum iuris. As the
spokesman of the Court, judge Ljubomir Popovic ´, explained, the supporting arguments
for this decision were that the programme of religious education was approved by boththe Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religions, upon previous consultation withthe religious communities; that students were not forced to attend religious educationclasses since they were given the freedom of choice between religious education andcivic education, which protected the students’ and their parents’ right not to declare theirreligious affiliation; and that the grades in this subject were descriptive and did not affect
the students’ final score. Slobodan Vuc ˇetic´, president of the Constitutional Court, sustained
Popovic ´’s opinion that the legal acts contained no incongruence with the Constitution, but
he remarked that the curricula, particularly the one for Orthodox catechism, contained someregulations that might be unconstitutional (Verska, 2003). The statement of both judgesremained incomplete. The position of Popovic ´on the participation of the Ministry of
Education in the approval of the programme of religious education is not borne out bythe findings of my own research and in my view, because of the almost exclusive authorityof the churches in matters of religious education, does not guarantee the principle of separ-
ation of church and state. Furthermore, the existence of only one alternative subject and the
previously described situation in some multiconfessional communities does not allow forthe definition of religious education as a free choice. Unfortunately, this second round ofdecision-making concerning religious education, which finally and fully established itsstatus, took place during the summer and remained, generally, beyond the reach, partici-pation and interest of the public.
Many issues remained unresolved and much criticism unanswered. In reaction to criti-
cism from one of his colleagues, Professor Sima Avramovic ´from the Belgrade Law
Faculty, one of the creators of the law on religious education, explained his arguments,
and, indirectly, the arguments of the Serbian government, for the introduction of religious356 Bojan Aleksov

education (Avramovic ´, forthcoming). Avramovic ´insists on the fact that this is an issue of
returning religious education to the legal system, and not of introducing it for the first time,and draws a comparison with the process of denationalisation of assets, the restitution ofproperty rights after the Second World War. However, the question of property restitutionneeds to take into account the historical perspective and changes that have taken place in themeantime. The situation is similar with religious education. The forcible and undemocraticabolition of religious education by the communist authorities after the Second World Wardoes not mean that that it should be reinstated in the form it used to have 50 years ago – that
is, that it should be exclusively in the hands of the religious communities that used to
provide it at that time.
Unfortunately, not even the debate on ‘the right of parents to educate their children in
accordance with their religious and philosophical beliefs’, which is an integral part ofmany human rights conventions, and which began with the introduction of religious edu-cation, has led to appropriate interpretations. While the opponents of religious educationhave focused on the negative aspects of the protection of this right, that is, on theparents’ right to protect their children from ideological indoctrination in educational insti-
tutions, Avramovic ´and other supporters of religious education have emphasised its positive
aspect, the fact that parents, as taxpayers, should enjoy the right for their children to receivean education in accordance with their religious and philosophical convictions. This isthe reason why it would be more appropriate to re-examine the procedure according towhich religious education was introduced, instead of insisting on the issues of constitution-ality, statutory matters, and the compliance of religious education with international con-ventions. Rejecting the possibility of the violation of ‘the right of the child to freedom ofthought, conscience and confession’, Professor Avramovic ´invokes legal regulations that
authorise the Ministry of Education to select counsellors for religious education and to sanc-
tion the textbooks and approve the list of teachers. However, my research has shown thatthese regulations are not being implemented in practice, or that they are rubber-stamped,which means that the authorised state agencies renounce their right to control religious edu-cation, including the possibility of preventing the violation of children’s rights.
The last argument in favour of the current religious education system in Serbia advanced
by Professor Avramovic ´is that it entirely conforms to international legal requirements; that
is, that Serbian domestic legislation is on the right track to be harmonised with the legal
systems of other European countries. This comparison does not take into consideration
the numerous changes that have taken place in religious education in Europe over thepast few decades, primarily as a consequence of growing confessional and cultural plural-ism, the danger of marginalising religious education in the contemporary world and thechanged relations between the state and religious communities (Schreiner, 1998). A funda-mental change in theological paradigms followed the move from authoritative methods ofeducation in favour of educational methods conforming to children’s interests and needs,and has influenced the alteration of the character of religious education in many European
countries. I shall mention here only the main trends, which are reflected, for example, in the
legal amendments adopted in Scotland in 1980 and in England and Wales in 1988, as well asin the ongoing debates in France following the foulard affair (the ban on veils) and in
Germany after its unification (McNeill, 2000; Beck and Hendon, 1994).
In many countries, students are no longer separated on a confessional basis, while their
religious teachers are no longer educated in religious schools, but rather at special depart-ments for the study of religion which have been established at numerous universities. InGreat Britain and in the Scandinavian countries, it is considered to be one of the responsi-
bilities of the secular state to offer students a balanced and critical knowledge of religion,
indispensable for understanding their own religious heritage and past as well as theReligious Education in Serbia 357

challenges of the present, and for preparing them for the future, by introducing to them the
various different religious systems (Templeton, 1999; Foster, 1998). Getting to know otherreligions from a confessional perspective is no longer considered to be sufficient. By care-fully altering the objectives and content of religious and moral education, the educationalauthorities in Great Britain and Scandinavia refuse either to be carried away by the prin-ciples of relativistic indifference toward religion or to yield to parents and religious commu-nities the choice of educating children in specific religions. On the contrary, theireducational perspective is of a spiritual development of children that will enable them to
assume a creative attitude toward the complex reality of the third millennium. For the
same reasons France, the bastion of secular education, has recently begun to introducereligious studies into secondary schools.
In Germany, except for the state of Brandenburg, the concept of ‘religious education’
with a curriculum that would be entirely the responsibility of the state and drawn up bythe state educational agencies has not been accepted. Nevertheless, ever since the 1970sconfessional religious education in Germany has been undergoing changes. The CatholicChurch and the Evangelical Church have developed curricula aimed not only at introducing
students to their traditional religious heritage, but also at helping them understand other
religious beliefs and preparing them for dialogue and the development of their ownindependent views regarding their own religious orientation. Several states (Nordrhein-Westfalen, for example) have launched religious education for Orthodox Christian studentsand also, recently, pilot programmes of religious education for Muslim students. The delayin the organisation of religious education for the members of other religious communities inGermany is caused by the imperative requirement of educational institutions that the tea-chers of religious education should be experts with a diploma from a German (pedagogic)
institution. Furthermore, the religious communities must fulfil the requirements of perma-
nence and unity in order to be accepted as equal partners of the state, whose religious auth-orities examine and license their curricula.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The most problematic issues that have become apparent in the course of this research are the
lack of integration of religious education into the educational system of Serbia and the polar-
isation and tensions that are present in many schools between religious education and civic
education. The reason for adverse reactions to religious education lies in the procedure ofits introduction, which was seen as involving a tacit accord between the SOC and one ormore political parties. After two years of implementation, and after having been endorsedby a host of legal and judicial decisions, religious education in Serbia continues to lagbehind the existing standards in other countries, whose examples are often invoked as ajustifying argument for its introduction. Numerous aspects of the teaching process and theresolution of all arising problems are left to the Commission for Religious Education, an insti-
tution that functions outside the educational system and therefore lacks legitimacy.
Religious education in state schools ought to be given special status because it differs
from church catechism both from the organisational point of view and as regards itscontent. Even if the confessional model is retained, its implementation requires closecooperation between the religious communities and the educational authorities in all organ-isational and substantial matters, concerning the curricula, methods, textbooks, supervisionand accountability of both parties for the teaching process. The state, and specifically theMinistry of Education, should be responsible for the professional training and professional
development of religious teachers and for the appointment of qualified experts who will be
directly responsible for the articulation and resolution of all the problems related to religious358 Bojan Aleksov

education, as is the case with other subjects.16The integration of religious education also
requires a precisely defined system for the validation of diplomas in religious studiesacquired abroad, with an emphasis on pedagogic qualifications. In order to improve theeffectiveness of the teaching process, the religious communities ought to introduce a ped-agogical and didactic dimension to their studies, or broaden it if it already exists. In additionto this long-term measure, and in view of the unequal resources available to the religiouscommunities, it is the Ministry of Education that should assume responsibility for organis-ing professional seminars for religious teachers of all the religious communities with the
aim of enhancing their integration into the educational system. As a preliminary, regular
meetings should be organised involving religious teachers, school principals and represen-tatives of the ministries and boards competent to deal with practical problems arising inschools, so that the seminars for training the teachers would not be encumbered by suchissues. The current tendency in educational reform is toward educational and professionaltraining for teachers throughout their career, as well as the explicit possibility of pro-fessional promotion, which ought to apply to religious teachers as well. The Ministry ofEducation, in cooperation with the schools, should examine and recommend other possibi-
lities leading to the integration of religious teachers and religious education into everyday
school life, from the option of appointing religious teachers as class tutors to the partici-pation of religious teachers in school celebrations and excursions and such activities asthe preparation of exhibitions. Numerous organisational issues and technical problems,which also make religious education a marginal subject, can be resolved only through thecooperation of educational structures and religious communities in an atmosphere of open-ness, patience, mutual understanding and compromise, rather than in an atmosphere ofmutual accusations of the kind that has been dominant so far, especially in the attitude of
the religious communities toward the schools.
The present arrangement makes it practically impossible for students to study both religious
education and civic education, although it is evident that the two subjects have differentcontent and should not be represented as alternatives. The main recommendation of the evalu-ation of civic education, that a compulsory choice between these two subjects should notbe imposed, has not been observed (Civic, 2002, p. 9). As the prospect for a change in thestatus of these two subjects is nonexistent, a solution could be found in an attempt to decreasethe difference in their content as a way of eliminating rivalry between them. One possibility
would be to introduce into the civic education curriculum, at least in secondary schools, a non-
confessional introduction to the world religions. The main obstacle to the implementation ofthis concept is the lack of the teaching staff, as the existing educational institutions in Serbiado not offer training in this subject. The Ministry of Education should take measures to over-come this deficiency by forming new departments for the comparative study of religions, andcould start with additional training for history, philosophy and sociology teachers.
Religious education for students from small religious communities does not normally
pose a problem in big cities, but, as noted above, it often does so in small village schools
and in branches of local schools. Here it would be advisable to set up alternative models.
In schools where religious education classes are not feasible the children should beoffered alternatives such as excursions or summer camps, which could include abbreviatedand specially adapted religious (and also civic) education programmes.
The Ministry of Education and the religious communities will have to solve the problem
of the frequent absenteeism of clergy who teach religious education, who because of theirparochial obligations and the nature of their vocation frequently cannot adhere to theirteaching schedule; this, in turn, directly affects the integration of religious education, its
status in the schools, and the students’ motivation. It is important to ensure that the religious
teachers appointed by the religious communities should not be frequently changed, exceptReligious Education in Serbia 359

in cases of flagrant breach of discipline or professional incompetence. It is also important to
require schools to respect fixed teaching schedules, including both the place and the timedesignated for religious education classes. Without full integration in the school educationalsystem, religious education will not achieve full legitimacy, nor will it motivate the studentsto attend regularly.
The question of evaluation, in all its aspects, needs to be looked at closely. Evaluation is
an important stimulus for students and a method of monitoring their work, and it is a tea-cher’s duty to explain to the students the criteria being applied. At the moment most reli-
gious teachers seem to have opted for the easiest approach, giving all their students the
highest grade. Evaluation of religious studies should be integrated with the methods usedfor other subjects. Regardless of the selected approach (numerical or descriptive), it isimportant to ensure that it should clearly reflect defined criteria; these take into accountboth the objectives of religious education and the results of contemporary research intothe grading systems. The issue of evaluation is not confined to the grading of students,however, but also involves the evaluation of the teachers and all the originators andimplementers of the curricula and syllabi. In order to achieve creative and high-quality
supervision of religious education it is necessary to establish cooperation between the edu-
cational authorities (the school, the educational and pedagogic institutions and the Ministry)and the religious communities. In the spirit of educational reform, in addition to themeasures that are indispensable for upgrading religious education and achieving itsintegration into the educational system, it is also necessary to make the activities of theCommission for Religious Education, as well as all the other bodies involved in religiouseducation, transparent and accessible to the public. It is of particular importance tokeep parents and school personnel permanently informed about developments related to
religious education because of the very nature of this subject and because of the fact that
its introduction has given rise to so much controversy.
The introduction and implementation of religious education in Serbia so far has been
characterised by principles that were subjected to criticism in the recent study of primaryeducation conducted by UNICEF in collaboration with the Ministries of Education inSerbia and Montenegro (Comprehensive, 2001). This report concludes that the decisionsrelating to education were made in a centralistic manner and applied regardless of thecontext and that the teaching process was organised in an inflexible way. The report finds
that the documents concerning religious education predominantly contain intentions,
desires, declarations and curricula, with no accompanying mechanisms and resources thatwould ensure their implementation. Students, parents and religious teachers were not con-sulted when the objectives of religious education were being defined, while the curriculaand syllabi were not harmonised with existing curricula, let alone with the currentreforms and the modernisation of the school system. Educational reform in Serbia shouldnot ignore the curricula and syllabi of newly introduced subjects, nor should it disregardthe development and experiences of religious education in other countries. Religious edu-
cation in schools makes sense only if it is correlated with the general educational curricu-
lum. When invoking the conventions on human rights in upholding the right to religiouseducation in schools, the religious communities in Serbia need to accept the fact that accord-ing to these conventions, schools must uphold democratic and pluralistic principles thatimply tolerance and openness to different religions and different perspectives on theworld. If it fails to observe the principles of educational reform and to aspire to an inte-gration of its objectives, content and methods in the teaching process, within the contextof a pluralistic school, both in the world and on the domestic scene, religious education
in Serbia will retain the status of a guest (or intruder, in the eyes of its opponents) in the
school system.360 Bojan Aleksov

Notes
1This paper is an abbreviated version of a study conducted as part of the ‘International Policy Fel-
lowship’ programme of the Open Society Institute in Budapest. The author expresses his gratitude
to professors Vladimir Ilic ´and Thomas Bremer for their suggestions and support.
2In Bosnia and Herzegovina RE was introduced in the Republika Srpska in 1992 and the Federa-
tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1994, first as an optional subject and later as an option among
compulsory subjects. In 2000 the High Representative of the international community proposed
the introduction of ‘Religious Culture’, a subject that would involve the teachings of the four tra-ditional religious communities in that country, primarily from the cultural perspective, but the
three major religious communities rejected this proposal.
3For details on the campaign and its activities, see www.geocities.com/veronavika.
4Archpriest Radomir V. Popovic ´wrote that none of the denominations throughout Serbia ever
complained that they would be threatened by the introduction of religious education, except
for the representatives of the Jewish community, who expressed their fears that an Orthodoxchild could tell a Jewish child that it was the Jews who crucified Christ. Professor Popovic ´
retorted, ‘The Chinese surely did not crucify Christ, and it is not the Christians’ fault that the
Jews did it’ (Popovic ´, 2001, p. 8).
5The only foreign author quoted in the compilations advocating the introduction of religious edu-
cation into state schools, Deacon Andrei Kurayev of the Russian Orthodox Church, considers that
‘boys manifest more interest for religion because they strive for universal truth, and their world is
more fraught with theory than that of girls, who tend to accept their creed upon being attracted to aspecific church figure (for example, to a priest)’ (Kurayev, 2001, p. 21).
6According to the decree on the organisation and implementation of religious education publishedon 27 July 2001, the following religious communities were proclaimed traditional: the SerbianOrthodox Church, the Islamic community, the Catholic Church, the Slovak EvangelicalChurch of Augsburg Confession, the Jewish community, the Reformed Christian Church and
the Evangelical Christian Church of Augsburg Confession. These are the denominations that
enjoyed the right to religious education in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before the SecondWorld War.
7More details can be found in Efekti (2003). Excerpts were published in Danas , 12–15 August
2003.
8In the Serbian school system the ‘pedagogue’ has a degree in pedagogy and is responsible for
supervising the education in each school.
9Higher school ( Visˇasˇkola) implies a level of education above high school but below university.
10The evaluation was conducted in 2002 for civic education only and published in Serbian, and in
English as a separate brochure (Civic, 2002).
11Some of the textbooks that are being used in Republika Srpska were written according to the cur-
riculum of 1939 from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. They contain some perspectives that are con-trary to universal principles of tolerance and respect for other ethnic and religious groups. The
legally approved Protestant denominations are labelled as sects, the Catholic and Protestant
creeds as erroneous, and the World Council of Churches as a Masonic institution that the Ortho-dox churches should leave as soon as possible. Furthermore, the textbooks in Republika Srpska
also have other drawbacks: they are not adapted to the students’ age and many pieces of infor-
mation and assumptions are incomprehensible without previous knowledge. The questions atthe end of each lesson simply require students to repeat the contents of the given lesson.
12In 2002 the Ministry of Education launched a large-scale education reform in Serbia. Religiouseducation was however completely left out of the reform.
13In Croatia over 90 per cent of elementary school students attend religious education, and 94 per
cent of the students of the Islamic confession in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
14In a summary of the experiences from Republika Srpska, five essential drawbacks in the
implementation of religious education were established: (1) unprepared teaching staff andpriests’ absenteeism from classes because of their parochial obligations; (2) disregard of the
fact that the students had no previous knowledge of the subject; (3) the fact that the curriculumReligious Education in Serbia 361

and syllabus did not conform to the students’ age; (4) the excessive general teaching requirements
and the workload of students; (5) the overly comprehensive curriculum and syllabus for religiouseducation (Pajic ´, 2001, pp. 70–71).
15In the census, 85 per cent out of 7,498,000 citizens of Serbia declared themselves as Orthodox, 5.5
per cent as Catholics, 3.2 per cent as Muslims and around 1 per cent as members of differentProtestant denominations.
16Recently, a supervisor for religious education was appointed in the Ministry of Religions, contrary
to the legal document that provides for this post in the Ministry of Education.
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