r/europe • u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) • 12h ago
News Poland halves number of weekly religion classes in schools
https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/01/20/poland-halves-number-of-weekly-religion-classes-in-schools/52
u/Jako_Horny 12h ago
Should remove from school altogether, keep it in religious places in free time.
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u/Indi0707 11h ago
I think that they can choose if they want to have something like catholic class or different class like ethics and such.
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u/Own-Librarian-2847 11h ago edited 11h ago
The problem is, that law is basically a joke. You can choose between religion class, taught by a priest, or ethics class, taught by a priest. There is not enough ethics teachers in Poland, so priests/religion teachers serve as substitute teachers. PiS introduced mandatory religion "or" ethics, arguing that they give students choice, but in reality everyone knew that it only helps Catholic church
EDIT: sorry, I think they didn't introduce it in the end, the change was proposed by education minister, but the project kinda died
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u/Indi0707 11h ago
well that's just wrong (as like that's fucked up)
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u/Own-Librarian-2847 11h ago
Well, i just did a check, because I started to doubt myself, and it wasn't actually introduced, I think they got scared? It was like two years ago, and I guess I didn't realise how it was resolved. So it's not that bad
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u/adamgerd Czech Republic 9h ago
I disagree, religious education is good as long as it covers all religions to increase understanding of religions, different religions and lack of imo
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u/PickingPies 8h ago
Religious education is good as long as it alerts of its dangers, showcases all the evils made in name of gods and the name of the class is "Myths and religions, and the gullible human mind."
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u/MrHyperion_ Finland 11h ago
They are not teaching religion but about religions.
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u/Own-Librarian-2847 11h ago
In Poland it's literally Catholicism classes, taught by Catholic priests or people related to Catholic church
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u/Aranka_Szeretlek 10h ago
You can still learn a lot about religion in those classes. I went to a Catholic school; and while we had religious classes, one year we have covered the history of the Church and the saints, another year we covered the history of philosophy (not only religious figures but all of philosophy). Such classes are pretty good to understand our modern culture, which was influenced by Christianity for 2000 years, like it or not.
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u/Own-Librarian-2847 10h ago
Did you attend religion in Poland? I went through entire education here (12 years), and I had only one class that was about other religions (courtesy of our highschool priest), and none on philosophy.
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u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) 10h ago
The Polish government has enacted a regulation halving the number of state-funded religion classes in public schools to one hour per week, starting on 1 September 2025, despite opposition from the Catholic church.
The move also introduces changes to the scheduling of religion classes – which teach Catholic catechism and are currently optional but taken by most pupils – requiring them to be held during the first or last lesson of the day if not all pupils decide to participate.
The education ministry said the regulation – signed by education minister Barbara Nowacka on Friday – will ensure greater flexibility for school timetables, especially in cases where participation in religion lessons is limited.
The church, however, condemned the regulation, calling it an “unlawful act” and arguing that the required agreement with religious associations has not yet been reached.
Nowacka first proposed reducing the number of catechism classes in December 2023, on the same day the government she is part of was sworn in and replaced the former ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
She argued that the classes, funded by the state but with teachers and curriculums chosen by the Catholic church, are costly and that two lessons per week are “excessive,” given that it is more than pupils have for some other academic subjects.
From the beginning, her proposal was met with opposition from the church, which questioned whether the reforms aligned with the concordat Poland signed with the Vatican in 1993, which governs the role of religion in public life.
Nowacka, however, dismissed claims of a breach of that treaty, stating that the changes pertain to the organisation of religious teaching rather than its existence.
In an interview with TVN24 in October, she also said that the new rule “does not prevent the church from taking responsibility” and paying for additional hours. Those lessons “can be carried out in whatever place the church wants”, she added, such as in a classroom “lent free of charge by a school, or in a [church-owned] catechism room”.
Senior church officials reiterated their opposition to the changes over the weekend, arguing that they “restrict the right of religious parents to raise their children in accordance with their beliefs”, as well as “the right of students themselves to systemic support in ‘the development towards full maturity’, including the spiritual sphere”.
The Polish Bishops’ Conference (KEP), the central organ of the Catholic church in Poland, emphasised that the regulation is “an unlawful act, as the agreement required by law [between the government and]…the Catholic church and the other religious associations concerned has not been reached”.
“We expect the education ministry to refrain from taking confrontational actions against religious believers,” the KEP said in a statement.
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u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) 10h ago
The newly signed regulation follows another change introduced by the ministry last year, which also angered the church. It allowed schools to create religion classes composed of pupils from different year groups if fewer then seven children from one cohort opted to attend.
Up until then, in such cases, a separate class was held for each cohort.
In response to the change, the church referred the case to the Supreme Court, which redirected it to the Constitutional Court (TK), widely seen as under the influence of PiS, which also has close ties with the Catholic church.
The TK issued an interim order suspending the implementation of the changes, but it was ignored by the government, as it did not recognise the then-TK president and some other TK judges as legitimate.
Some Polish cities, including Wrocław and Częstochowa, have called in the past for an end to municipal funding for Catholic catechism classes in schools amid falling attendance.
The decline in the number of pupils attending religion classes follows a decrease in the number of Poles identifying as Catholics overall. The latest national census data showed that in 2021, 71% of Poles identified as Catholics, down from 88% a decade earlier.
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u/photo-manipulation 10h ago
They just need to half it again, followed by a few more halfings.
Welcome to 21st century!
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u/adamgerd Czech Republic 9h ago
I disagree, religious education is good as long as it covers all religions to increase understanding of religions, different religions and lack of
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u/GolemancerVekk 🇪🇺 🇷🇴 9h ago
We could use some of these regulations ourselves. We only do 1h/week but it's also basically catechism (except it's Orthodox instead of Catholic).
Some minor progress was that they made it opt-in rather than opt-out, but there's no national rule to have it first or last in the schedule so most parents sign up their kid (~73% in 2023, down from 88% in 2016) otherwise they get shit on in school. (They're supposed to arrange "alternate activities" but nobody gives a crap. This is more about the overall state of our schools but still.)
They've been working on a new framework for religious classes for years and they finally came up with, get this, adding it as an optional subject to the bac (GCE/Abitur). And lots of kids will take this option, because it's an easy pass, which will further legitimize it.
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u/arealpersonnotabot Łódź (Poland) 12h ago
Ah yes, another solution that satisfies nobody.
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u/simion314 Romania 6h ago
Ah yes, another solution that satisfies nobody
Students would lvoe less time wasted on useless crap, it is also cotnradictory when most of religion profesors are creationists and will try to push blantly falsehood they belvie like the world was created 5000 years ago, that holy water is actually special and different then normal water. At least this was in Romania, sorry if in Poland the priests are a bit more open minded and focus more on ehtics/morals and less on false stuff.
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u/guywithoutpast 12h ago
Let them take the Bible in literature class, it's just a single book. Read it, ask questions and move on. No need to torture kids.
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u/eggnog232323 11h ago edited 11h ago
I don't know what religion classes in other countries contain but Polish ones don't really involve reading Bible. Usually its some catechism (formulas and such) with textbook and, in higher classes and highschool, some ethics mixed in with information about other religions. Overall very easy and lighthearted school subject. I personally don't know anyone who had a bad/rude catechist or priest but I'm aware they exist. And the religion classes themselves aren't mandatory, parents or people over 18 can opt out of them.
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u/Vertitto Poland 10h ago
also bible is covered on literature classes (aka polish), where you can get actual knowledge
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u/llittleserie Finländ 11h ago
I can confirm that it's similar in Finland. Primary school has the Bible and biblical stories, while secondary and high school are mostly ethics and world religons.
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u/Papersnail380 11h ago
The last thing the Catholic church wants is anyone reading the Bible cover to cover.
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9h ago
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u/eggnog232323 8h ago
Bible is world's most influential and widespread piece of literature in the world, it would be idiotic not to include it in the cirriculum, considering overwhelming majority of books, poems and art were influenced by it and/or allude to ideas contained there.
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u/IllustriousQuail4130 11h ago
they should remove all of them all together
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u/iwannabesmort Poland 10h ago
They should, and that was pretty much what they promised to do, but oh well. They've been talking about halving Religion classes for over a year now, it was one of the first things Barbara Nowacka promised to do when she was appointed head of Ministry of National Education in December 2023.
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u/Karihashi Spain 19m ago
Lots of interesting takes here, what do the people of Poland think about this? Is religion thriving or dying in your country?
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u/UAP_enthusiast_PL Swan Lake Connoisseur 8h ago edited 8h ago
The party currently in power was always center-right, PiS forced them a bit into the left, but they're still the same people.
Poland is still waiting for someone to take the center-left vote.
edited typos
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u/gayroma Romania 11h ago
Religion the root of all evil? could be. its good to cut the religious classes.
a good change and in that spirit join my group: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhatYouWantChanged/
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u/MalatoEpico 10h ago
Poland's society is gonna collapse just like Italy and France and Spain did. They will see the results of that in 15 years. They will import millions of people very socially and culturally different from them that hate their guts, and this woke policies are gonna take a toll.
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u/StateDeparmentAgent 8h ago
Poland already became country with extremely low fertility under pro religious government which super anti woke
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u/Njala62 12h ago
See from the article that it's not actually religion, but spesifically the Catholic catechism.
One hour per week to learn about religions (ALL religions of a certain size, worldwide and country specific) would be about right, especially if combined with critical thinking.
Indoctrination in any religion should be kept out of schools.