At the Hamburg schools, representatives of non-Christian religious communities will in future also offer religious instruction to all pupils. This was announced by school senator Ties Rabe (SPD).
With that, Hamburg is going a nationwide unique route, said Rabe. He spoke of a "wonderful idea for our religiously and culturally diverse city". The press conference was also attended by representatives of the North Protestant church, the Catholic Church, the Jewish community, the Alevi community and the Muslim associations.
In Hamburg, religious education is not separated into denominations. At the state schools there is a teaching for all religions and denominations, which was previously granted by the Protestant church based on a common curriculum.
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A model experiment among others at a school in the district Altona, in which also Jewish, Alevi and Muslim teachers taught religion for all, had gone very well and is now being transferred to all schools, said Rabe.
At the University of Hamburg, appropriate courses have been created for aspiring religious teachers. Over the next few years, teachers with a non-Christian religious affiliation could become increasingly employed.
The goal is that the proportional ratio of teachers in their different faiths once corresponded to the students, said the specialist teacher for religious education in the school board, Jochen Bauer.
In 2012, the Hanseatic city had recognized this as a religious community in contracts with three Muslim associations and the Alevi community. Since then, the concept of religious instruction for all has been developed with them.