The legislative framework and status quo of religious

In this section I will explain what legislative frames are set for religious education in Estonia. I will take a closer look at how schools have adopted these frames in organising religious education. I also comment on teaching in general and on being a teacher of religious education in particular.

The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia declares that there is no state church in Estonia. Membership of church or religious associations is voluntary, schools and churches are separated. The essentials of compulsory education in Estonia are regulated nationally, but the schools have still some freedom in developing their own profiles and curricula within a given framework. The Parliament (Riigikogu) approves the laws regulating education, through which the main directions of education policy and the principles of school organisation are defined. The organisation and general principles of the education system in Estonia are shaped by Education Act of Republic of Estonia (Riigi Teataja 1992, 12, 192)³. This states that basic education is the minimum compulsory general education. Compulsory school attendance begins when the child reaches the age of seven. Basic school is divided into three stages of study: stage I – grades 1−3 (7–10 year olds); stage II – grades 4−6 (10–13 year olds); stage III – grades 7−9 (13–16 year olds).

After graduating from basic school, students can attend an upper secondary school, a secondary vocational school, or enter a profession (Ministry of Education and Research, 2007, 5–6). Upper secondary school (Gymnasium) is not compulsory. The target group of my research was students in stage III or in their first year of Gymnasium.

The Government of the Republic (Vabariigi Valitsus) decides the national strategies for education and approves the national curriculum, which provides a list of compulsory subjects with a syllabus and study time for each subject (Riigi Teataja I 2002, 20, 116). Religious education is not a compulsory subject,

3 The last reduction became effective on the 01.09.2009, Riigi Teataja I 2009, 2, 4, also available online at: http://www.riigiteataja.ee/ert/act.jsp?id=13198443 (accessed 07.09.

2009).

so there are only general guidelines, but no national syllabus. Schools have the freedom to develop their own curricula for electives.

Religious education is regulated by the Basic Schools and Upper Secondary Schools Act. Schools are obliged to organise religious education classes, if a minimum of 15 students or their parents in one school stage are interested in the subject (Riigi Teataja I 1999, 24, 358)⁴. Parents have to give their consent for children younger than 15 to take religious education.

The enforcement of this legislation is complicated. There is no way to gauge interest in religious education. The schools do not have obligations to introduce it; parents have to ask if a school would be interested in offering religious education. Since it takes some effort to find a teacher of religious education, only a few head teachers are interested. There are several other lapses in legislative framework, which result in a lack of clear definition of the obli-gations of schools to find religious education teachers, leaving the status of the

‘voluntary subject’ open to interpretation (Valk 2007b, 170). There is no alternative subject for religious education; students who have chosen religious education may have an extra lesson at the end of the school day and sometimes must wait for an hour or two. Insufficient legal status for the subject, the shadow of the former Soviet ideology in people’s attitudes, the lack of qualified teachers and the overloaded curriculum make the organisation of religious education at a school level very difficult.

The majority of students in Estonia acquire their knowledge, attitudes and views about religion much as French students do: by studying religion in their history, civic education, and literature courses (Willaime, 2007; Beraud et al, 2009). According to the information from the official website of Estonian Ministry of Education and Research in 2006–2007, when most of my fieldwork was carried out, Estonia had a total of 601 primary schools and upper secondary schools⁵. Only a few schools offer religious education, usually in primary classes or for a year in upper secondary school, according to a letter from the Ministry of Education and Research (Vaher, 2009). Having about 6% of schools with religious education and about 10% of classes in each of them having an option to take religious education, it can be calculated that fewer than 1% of all students in Estonia can take religious education classes, even if they wish to do so.

According to official statistics the number of schools offering religious education has decreased (44 schools in 2005/2006, 34 schools in 2008/2009).

The most remarkable changes have taken place in primary and upper secondary schools: 27 primary schools offered religious education in 2005/2006, 18 in 2008/2009; 38 upper secondary schools offered religious education in 2005/

2006, and 21 did in 2008/2009. The changes have not been so remarkable in other school stages: from 18 to 16 in the second school stage, from 16 to 14 in the third school stage (see Chart 2, according to Undrits, 2006; Vaher, 2009).

4 Põhikooli ja gümnaasiumi Seadus [Basic Schools and Upper Secondary Schools Act]

available online at: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/ert/act.jsp?id=77246 (accessed 21.04.2009).

5 http://www.hm.ee/index.php?048055 (accessed 20.02.2008)

The official statistics, however, do not show the real situation. There is some variety in the terms by which the subject is organised. By the law it should be voluntary for students, so some schools offer religious education at the end of the school day. In addition to few schools offering voluntary religious education, some schools have tried to solve the problem of religious illiteracy by giving a different name to the subject, such as ‘History of Culture’,

‘Worldview Studies’, and ‘History of Religions’. It is remarkable that in such cases schools do not have to follow the principle of voluntary learning and these courses could be obligatory. Parents’ permission is not needed.

Chart 2: Number of schools with religious education in 2006 and 2008

1816 14 21 27

18 16 38

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

2006 2008

1st stage 2nd stage 3rd stage gymnasium

Source of data: Undrits, 2006; Vaher, 2009

As a result, some of the schools offering special instruction on religion avoid using ‘religion’ in the course title. This makes the situation rather confusing. At the beginning of 2009 I made a request to all 80 schools which, according to the Estonian Education Information System, offer philosophy, cultural studies or similar subjects. I received responses from only 42 schools. I could work out that the number of schools which offer courses in religious education was more than had been counted earlier – an increase from 34 to 50. Thus I can conclude that the number of schools actually offering these courses is certainly higher, especially upper secondary schools, than the official numbers would have us believe. The reasons for that can be found in public debates over religious education, which is discussed in the next section.

In my study I distinguish between students who:

a) study at a school which does not pay any special attention to education about religion and do not have religious education in any classes;

b) study at a school which does not have the subject but religious education is integrated into school life; students may regularly attend religious services in different churches or have a chaplain at school;

c) have studied religious education only a long time ago in primary classes, usually as a voluntary subject with content oriented to bible stories and Christian festivals, but dealing also with students’ values;

d) have studied religious education within a year of my research; in most cases it was a compulsory course about world religions.

Some words must be said about teachers in Estonia. There is a bimodal distri-bution of teachers in terms of age and length of service according to the OECD report. The highest concentration of teachers is those with more than 15 years of service, but approximately 20% of the teachers have less than five years of service, showing the high number of teachers leaving the profession (OECD, 2001, 68; Eurydice, 2008, 146–152). According to the statistics of the Ministry of Education and Research, 66% of teachers are more than 41 years old (the homepage of Ministry of Education and Research http://www.hm.ee/

index.php?048055), which means that most of teachers completed their basic teacher training under the Soviet regime. A state audit office reports that more than 1/3 of teachers are over 50 years old, while the number of young teachers is decreasing (Kivine, 2004, 8). Many educational officials argue for the inte-gration of all religious topics into other subjects, taught in school – literature, history, civic education, arts, and thus remove the need for separate religious education. At the same time, most teachers have not been trained to deal with religion in their classrooms. None of the teacher training programmes except those for teachers of religious education have any compulsory courses on religious studies.

A full time teacher of religious education is exceptional in the Estonian education system. Some teachers work only 1–3 hours in a school having, for example, a church as their main employer; others teach subjects such as philo-sophy or history (Paesüld, 2005). As the requirements are high, the teachers are usually specialists, educated in both theology and pedagogy. While most teachers in Estonia received their education in the Soviet era, most teachers specifically of religious education completed their professional training in the last 15 years. Teacher training for religious education did not begin until 1989/1990 by the Eesti Evangeelse Luterliku Kiriku Usuteaduse Instituut (Theological Institute of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church). It was the first institution to train teachers of religious education. During the Soviet regime the Theological Institute was a training college for pastors. After independence it began to train other church workers: Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, deacons, and teachers of religious education. When in 1995 the first graduates completed their studies in the re-opened Faculty of Theology in Tartu Univer-sity, it became possible to establish a teacher training programme for teachers of religious education at the University. There are two more confessional insti-tutions for higher education that have prepared teachers of religious education:

Eesti Metodisti Kiriku Teoloogiline Seminar [Baltic Methodist Theological

Seminary], Kõrgem Usuteaduslik Seminar [Higher Theological Seminary of the Union of Evangelical Christian and Baptist Churches of Estonia], and an ecumenical private high school Tartu Teoloogia Akadeemia [Tartu Academy of Theology]. At present there are more than 250 qualified teachers of religious educations, of whom approximately 40 are teaching religious educations in schools (Paesüld, 2005).