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Religious education in Serbia1

When the government of the Republic of Serbia decided to introduce religious education into state schools in 2001, Serbia came into line with the neighbouring countries, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where at the request of the dominant religious communities confessional religious education had been part of state school curricula ever since the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. In Serbia, religious education was introduced under chaotic circumstances, shortly after the democratic changes following 5 October 2000, to which it was directly linked. The previous regime of Slobodan Milošević had rejected all initiatives seeking the introduction of religious education into state schools, in spite of the numerous concessions and policy changes toward the church made since the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Confronted as it was by the numerous challenges of transition, the newly created ideological vacuum and the need to mitigate the radical nationalism that had marked Serbia in the 1990s, the new democratic government led by Zoran Ðindić decided to introduce religious education in a calculated scheming attempt to ensure the sympathy of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). This decision provoked vehement reactions from the government’s opponents, but its effects and consequences have not so far been the subject of any serious analysis. This paper is a pioneer venture in that direction. In the introductory part of my paper I survey the public debate that accompanied the introduction of religious education in Serbia. I then analyse the underpinning legislation and the relevant regulations. In the empirical part of my study I look into numerous components of religious education: the curricula and syllabi, the textbooks, the teachers’ professional competence, practical problems related to the implementation of the programme in the schools, the (lack of) interest on the part of the students and the indirect discrimination provoked by the introduction of religious education. I pay particular attention to the rivalry between religious education and the other optional subject, civic education, this posing the most serious structural problem ensuing from the introduction of these two subjects. The educational reform that took place in Serbia in 2003 has left the model and the status of religious education in Serbia unchanged, and in deep discrepancy with the changes that religious education is undergoing in other European countries. Finally, I make recommendations as to how to improve religious education in Serbia within the existing legal framework, on the basis of the experience of other countries and the advances that have been made in religious pedagogy and didactics as well as in the understanding of the importance and the role of religious education in schools.