The introduction of religious education as a subject is a sensitive issue. It is.
In that part, I completely agree with the statement of the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports recently in an interview with "Vijesta", in the part where she spoke about the introduction of religious education in public schools.
In the same conversation, Minister Vesna Bratić also said that, in this regard (the truth, also regarding sexual education, which would not be sexual education, but reproductive health), the department headed by her will advocate for a broad consensus in the professional community and society in the whole.
She said, however, that whether religious education will be a subject taught in public schools "should wait for the signing of the Basic Agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC)".
And it is not the first time that the Ministry of Education has said that the issue of introducing religious education in public schools will wait for the basic contract with the Serbian Orthodox Church.
At the end of September, a few days after Metropolitan Joanikije of Montenegro and the Littoral declared that it is the church's obligation to advocate for the introduction of religious education in schools and that the right to religious education is one of the basic human rights and the rights of the child to this type of education, from the Ministry of Vesna Bratić "Pobjedi" said that the Ministry "still has not received any document related to such or a similar request" and that "also, the Basic Agreement has not yet been signed."
Who in a secular state - and Montenegro is, according to Article 14 of the Constitution, decides on the educational strategy - the state or religious communities?
Pioneer with Ilmihal
Born in '75, Tito's pioneer, I grew up in another former republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am the child of a military person, we did not celebrate religious holidays, but I clearly remember that Bika, my paternal grandmother, in those days when she would come to Mostar from Gusnice near Rožaj, she would discreetly go to another room, usually the bedroom, to pray. All his life and working life, and he worked as a civilian with the army in what was then Titograd, he fasted during Ramadan and prayed as well as my grandfather, my maternal grandfather. Public.
We were, I think, in the fifth or sixth grade, when I first heard about "Krism". It's funny to me even today how those of us who are not Christians were "jealous" because we didn't get any of the gold in those days.
There was no gold, but we got Easter egg stickers and would stick them on my sister's and my room's doors.
I also remember Bajram - when it fell during the holidays, and I was with my grandmother and aunt in Gusinje. I was left with a picture - me in a checkered skirt, white tights, lacquered shoes, hair neatly cut into a page, with bangs; in the company of other children, I went from house to house, from door to door.
"Woman, woman, happy Eid", we shouted in unison, and the housewives would come out and treat us with candies or, when they ran out of candies, sugar cubes.
In Gusinje, I also realized that my peers have some books from which they learn about religion, so I also started studying with them. And in Mostar, I, a pioneer, brought several Ilmihals, "Islamic guides for beginners", and studied. And at thirteen she closed that chapter.
In the years after we escaped from Mostar due to the wars of the XNUMXs and returned to Montenegro, we often laughed imagining what those who moved into our apartment thought of us as a family - dad, a military man, originally from Montenegro - and in BiH then you were only Montenegrins and period, in the Ilmihali house, the Bible, the Koran...
I recently mentioned several of these pictures to a young colleague. She wondered where I got so many stories about religion from that time of communism.
"I thought it was completely forbidden."
Someone recently commented that the sounds from Konik, a settlement in Podgorica, are disturbing when the hodja is studying. After coming from Mostar, there was a strange silence for years, how much I missed the voice with which the hodja calls the faithful to prayer. I also missed church bells. It was simply the sounds of the city for me...
It was also strange to me when my friend recently, seeing me in front of the Catholic church, asked me if I was allowed to enter. And because on those very days, a colleague asked me if it was forbidden for women to enter the mosque... As children, we entered all those buildings, the truth is, most often after tourists, but no one ever told us - don't go there. As an adult, later during part of my life in Kotor, I used to go to midnight parties with my friends, to celebrate with them the holidays that they care about.
I'm not happy because the people around me show that they don't know the people they live with. I don't even know where the fear of talking about religion comes from - we need to talk. The question is - how?
What children are learning now and what the regulations say
Since 2009, the history of religion has been an optional subject in schools in Montenegro. This subject can be taken in the ninth grade of elementary school and in the first or second, and third or fourth grade of high school.
"Pobjeda" recently announced that last year, 423 students in thirteen primary schools and 552 in sixteen secondary schools chose to study the history of religion. About 7.800 students attend elementary school in Montenegro, and about 7.500 students attend secondary school.
If the decision to introduce religious education in public schools is made on the basis of basic contracts with religious communities, Minister Vesna Bratić does not have to wait for the one with the SPC.
According to what "Vijesti" published in mid-September, Article 16 of the Draft Basic Agreement with the SPC foresees that Orthodox religious teaching in public schools will be regulated by a special agreement between the contracting parties.
And the basic contract with the Holy See, signed a decade ago, contains a position that says that "the possibility of studying the Catholic faith in public schools will be regulated by a future contract between the parties."
The agreements with the Islamic and Jewish communities do not contain anything similar, and each - both the fundamental one with the Holy See and the agreements with the Islamic and Jewish communities - contain an identical article that refers to the right of parents to teach their children their religion:
"In accordance with the principles of religious freedom, Montenegro recognizes the basic right of parents to religious instruction of their own children".
The basic contract with the Holy See was signed in June 2011. The contracts with the Islamic and Jewish communities were signed on the last day of 2012.
The basic contract with SPC is pending.
The study of religious instruction in public schools is not foreseen by the Law on Freedom of Religion from 2019, nor its subsequent amendments.
In Chapter IV - Religious Instruction and Religious Schools, in Article 51, the Law states that religious instruction "can be conducted in religious buildings or in other facilities appropriate for that purpose", that "for the participation of minors in religious instruction, parental consent is required, i.e. guardian, as well as the consent of the minor if he is older than 12 years of age". And that religious instruction with students can only be conducted during the time when students do not have classes at school...
The law states that educational programs, as well as the contents of textbooks and manuals in religious schools must not contradict the Constitution and the law, and that the harmonization of educational programs and the contents of textbooks and manuals of religious schools with the Constitution and the law is carried out by the state administration body responsible for education affairs. .
Now, only if someone does not already have a plan to change the Law on Freedom of Religion again and add an article similar to the one from the BiH law, which "guarantees the right to a subject in public and private preschool, primary and secondary schools, whose the content of religious instruction"...
And who knows, maybe someone would change the Constitution as well... I only doubt that someone who is already thinking of calling sexual education and reducing it to one part - reproductive health, has in mind, say, a constitutional change in the definition of marriage.
And parliamentarians who casually call rape victims someone's spoiled daughters and politicians (in an attempt) who address women in the language of misogynists would have a lot to learn from sex education.
But, what did the minister say? The introduction of religious education as a subject is a sensitive issue. It is.
Bonus video:
