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Religious education for everyone in Hamburg: model project started in 2019 (archive)
Photo: Markus Scholz/ DPA
Catholic, evangelical, muslim, jewish or atheist?
In most federal states, parents are supposed to choose, depending on their faith, whether and to which religious instruction they send their children at school.
There are often several parallel offers.
Pupils are taught separately according to denominations.
In Hamburg, this should be fundamentally different from the coming school year.
After the summer holidays, the city will successively introduce joint religious instruction for all children in all state schools.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Hamburg agreed to these plans, the school authorities and the diocese announced on Thursday.
All religious communities are now involved in the project.
According to the information, denominations will no longer be taught separately in religious instruction, but together.
Atheistic children should also participate.
The model "now includes all major religious communities and can thus provide impetus for the whole of Germany," said School Senator Ties Rabe (SPD) according to the announcement.
Rabe: "Not a completely different religious education class, but a better one"
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From the school senator's point of view, the model offers several advantages: "This is not a completely different type of religious education, but a better one that gives equal consideration to the different religions and worldviews," says Rabe.
»This nationwide unique lesson does not separate, but brings together and thus enables the dialogue between children and young people of different faiths and worldviews.«
According to the city's education plans, the following goal is linked to religious education for all:
»It makes it possible to get to know religions and other beliefs, to think about them and to form informed and differentiated judgments. Anyone who feels connected to a religion can deepen their knowledge, get to know other beliefs and ways of life, reflect on personal views and thus deepen their own religious identity.
Those who do not have a distinctly religious background, who see themselves as distanced or opposed to any form of religion, can base their critically distanced perspective on the matter and understand the religious backgrounds of others better.«
The OK of the Archdiocese was still missing - until now
With its accession to the Catholic Church, Hamburg has taken the final step on a path that has been going on for some time towards religious instruction for everyone.
A corresponding model project has been in place since 2019.
Since 2012, the school authorities have been working with the Protestant Church, the Islamic religious communities, the Alevi and the Jewish community to develop religious education for everyone.
The training and further education of teachers has been adapted.
Only the participation of the Catholic side has not been forthcoming so far.
The archdiocese said that the model project, which started a good two years ago, made it clear that the differences between denominations could be sufficiently taken into account in the practice of religious education.
The lessons enable »a differentiated examination of young Catholic Christians with the specific content of their confession – and guarantee religious instruction that is also given by Catholic teachers«, says Archbishop Stefan Hess.
The model has concrete consequences for the hiring of teachers: Not only Protestant, but also Jewish, Muslim, Alevi and now also Catholic teachers can teach religious education - provided they have completed a full degree and completed a proper legal clerkship.
This opens up a new and secure perspective for the approximately 100 Catholic religious education teachers in the civil service, the archdiocese said.
According to the school senate, classes will continue to be taught exclusively by state teachers, unlike in other federal states.
Clergymen and employees of the religious communities were excluded.
The various religions remain a compulsory subject, but are taught more "authentically".
Because religious instruction is anchored in the Basic Law, Hamburg is breaking new legal ground with its model.
However, a constitutional expert opinion confirmed the chosen path.
Unlike the school senator, Archbishop Hess emphasized that the model was a "perfect concept for Hamburg".
A transfer of this religious instruction to the regions of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg, which also belong to the Archdiocese of Hamburg, is hardly conceivable.
fok/AFP
