A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 21 - Tuesday, May 25th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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Deficiencies in teaching about religion in schoolsINTERRELIGIOUS COUNCIL OF RUSSIA CALLS MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE TO GIVE SCHOOL CHILDREN OPPORTUNITY TO STUDY RELIGIOUS CULTURE FROM NONATHEISTIC POSITION Sedmitsa.ru, 19 May 2004 - The Interreligious Council of Russia called Russian Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko to give to school children the possibility of studying religious culture from the point of view of religious organizations. "We think that the information contained in the general humanities courses on the history and values of world religions is very fragmentary and often tendentious and in such a context it results in the children's receiving actually distorted information," a letter to the minister says. Leaders and representatives of traditional religious organizations in Russia are concerned that "those who graduate from the schools today know almost nothing about the values and religious culture of their own people or of other peoples constituting Russian society." In the opinion of members of the Interreligious Council, as a rule the teaching in the schools of information about religion is accompanied by explanations from an exclusively atheistic position and properly religious explanations of various aspects of religious culture either are given in abbreviated form or are absent entirely. For a resolution of this problem the Interreligious Council proposes teaching religion in the schools in a way that involves religious organizations. The Interreligious Council also asks the minister of education to give to ecclesiastical educational institutions the right to present to their graduates diplomas in the state format. In so doing the authors of the letter mention that the ecclesiastical schools "actually carry out a curriculum of advanced professional education, specifically, in the specialties of musicians, theologians, historians, and the like, according to a report from NEWSru.com, citing Interfax. (tr. by PDS)
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