Search

For some, religious education is a possibility to exercise religious freedom in its positive dimension, especially the freedom to receive a religious teaching. Others perceive religious education as a threat to negative religious freedom, namely the freedom not to be indoctrinated with religious matters. For a long time, the tension between these two aspects was resolved by providing an opt-out clause: anyone who does not want to attend religion classes can simply deselect this subject. Throughout decades, the settled case law by the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights confirmed that providing such a clause is sufficient. However, this continuous line of jurisprudence was broken by the case of Grzelak v. Poland (15 June 2010). The Court determined in this case that exercising one's right to opt out can constitute a human rights violation in itself, since it entails a disclosure of the pupil's religious or non-religious orientation and discriminates him or her by the non-attendance of religion classes against the attending pupils. More recent judgements no longer impose requirements as strict as in Grzelak, which would render a system of exemption practically impossible to implement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion Education teaching in post-independence Zimbabwe has remained bible-oriented and confessional at a time when most Religion Education stakeholders expect an ‘open’, plural and authentic multi-faith Religion Education curriculum. Despite curriculum innovation initiatives aimed at introducing new approaches such as experiential learning, Religion Education stakeholders in Zimbabwe argue for an objective and plural approach that will address the expectations of a post-independence multi-faith society. To contribute to this discourse on the new authentic multi-faith Religion Education curriculum, an empirical study was conducted on a proposed values-oriented multi-faith curriculum. The data obtained showed that most Religion Education stakeholders prefer an authentic values-oriented multi-faith model that would contribute to the teaching of values such as citizenship, human rights, ubuntu/unhu, nationhood, etc. A values-oriented multi-faith approach is, therefore, proposed for possible implementation in Zimbabwe secondary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]