Religion lessons, however, need to be changed. Nowacka made her decision [NEWS]

This is in line with the plan of the Ministry of National Education. However, the implementation of this plan was not certain, because also today the President of the Constitutional Court, Julia Przyłębska, issued a so-called protective resolution, according to which the implementation of the provisions of the regulation should be suspended until the Constitutional Court rules on the case. This is in theory. In practice, the government does not systematically implement the decisions of the Constitutional Court.

Przyłębska: don’t do that

The request to examine the constitutionality of the Ministry of National Education’s new regulation on religion in schools was filed on August 27 by the First President of the Supreme Court, Małgorzata Manowska. Representatives of the Polish Episcopal Commission and the Polish Ecumenical Council, which brings together Protestant churches and the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church, asked her to do so. Judge Manowska agreed to the request and also filed a motion to suspend the application of the contested provisions until the case is resolved by the Constitutional Court.

According to Judge Manowska, the regulation violates the principles of “a consensual way of regulating relations between the State and Churches” and makes it impossible to teach religion “in the manner specified in the curriculum of this subject” with regard to creating the basis for organizing religious education in inter-class or inter-class groups.

Today, Friday, August 30, on wPolsce.pl television, the President of the Constitutional Court, Julia Przyłębska, announced that she had issued a precautionary decision and thus suspended the application of the regulation of the Ministry of National Education. She explained that the application of the regulation “will lead to an unexpected reduction in the demand for work by religion teachers in educational institutions, given the vacatio legis of only one month, which – due to the failure to provide teachers with the opportunity to obtain qualifications to teach other subjects – poses for them a real threat of sudden job loss.”

Nowacka: Do it!

According to the law, such a decision by the Constitutional Court should suspend the activities of the Ministry of National Education. But Donald Tusk’s government has been systematically ignoring the decisions of the Constitutional Court since March. This is related to the Sejm’s resolution of March 6, the aim of which is to eliminate the effects of the 2015-2023 constitutional crisis. The resolution contains a provision that “taking into account in the activity of a public authority the decisions of the Constitutional Court rendered in violation of the law may be considered as a violation of the principle of legalism by these bodies”. Since July, the Sejm has also been working on two bills to reform the Constitutional Court – amendments to the bill have already been submitted by the Senate and now the Sejm will consider them again.

This is why Minister Nowack can afford to ignore Przyłębska’s decision. On this matter, he issued a statement in which he wrote: “The Minister of Education informs that the aforementioned security has no legal effects and that the aforementioned regulation was issued in accordance with the law and is generally applicable from 1 September 2024.”

“It is not the decisions of the episcopate that will influence the shape of the state’s educational policy, it is the government that will decide on issues related to the functioning of the state,” Nowacka told PAP.

How much does a deal mean?

The basis of the dispute is art. 12 section 2 of the Education System Act. It states that the details of the organization of religious lessons in kindergartens and schools are determined by the Minister of Education, but “in consultation with the authorities of the Catholic Church and the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church and other churches and religious associations.”

What is at stake now is what is meant by “agreement”.

According to representatives of the complaining church, there was no agreement with the Ministry of National Education. “The Ministry of National Education limited itself to simply allowing the Church to express its opinion,” said the spokesman for the Polish Episcopal Commission, Father Leszek Gęsiak, during a briefing on Thursday.

The Ministry of National Education, for its part, maintains that there was an agreement. Because three consultation meetings were held and the officials took into account the requests of the churches and implemented some of them. Barbara Nowacka even jokes and repeats in the media: – I would like to remind the bishops that the eighth commandment says: “You shall not bear false witness.” The consultations were held in the ministry, she argues.

– The phrase “in agreement” is vague. At one extreme, this means consultations to at least approximate positions, or even reach a compromise. But a broader definition can also be adopted (as stated on the church website) – that the parties must reach a consensus, i.e. reach an agreement on the subject of the case – Prof. Ewa Łętowska, long-time Ombudsman and judge of the Constitutional Tribunal in 2022-2011, told us. – This, of course, sometimes provokes a dispute that someone – the authorities or the court – has to resolve, she said.

What Nowacka changed in school religion…

Starting in September, the school principal will be able to bring together groups of children from different grades and even age groups during religion classes. It is enough that the division into educational stages is maintained – that is, children from grades 1 to 3, 4 to 6 or 7 to 8 will be able to attend the same religion class together. However, the Ministry of National Education has limited the size of this group – it can have no more than 25 students in kindergartens and grades 1 to 3 and 28 in older classes.

This change was included by the Ministry of National Education on July 26 in the regulation on the conditions and method of organizing religious education in kindergartens and public schools. Until now, if fewer than seven students in a given class decided to follow a religion, the school had to gather a larger group made up of people from different classes.

The Ministry of National Education does not oblige school principals to group students, it only gives them this opportunity.

Starting this year, the grade for religion will no longer be included in the average. The Ministry of National Education justifies that religion is a voluntary activity, “therefore, there is no justification for the grade of the annual or final classification of these classes to affect the average grades obtained”.

This can make the number of students participating in catechesis more realistic.

According to the report of the Institute of Statistics of the Catholic Church “Church in Figures” from December 2023, the attendance rate in primary schools reaches 89 percent, but after moving on to secondary or technical schools it drops – to 60 percent in secondary schools and 65 percent in technical schools. There are also regions where it is much lower – 29 percent. Secondary school students in the west of the country choose religious classes. In large cities such as Warsaw, Poznań and Wrocław, 60-70 percent of people attend religious classes. Primary school students and only 15-30 percent of secondary school students. When the grade in religion is no longer included in the average, it is possible that interest in catechesis will decrease even further.