The Russian diocese will accredit school teachers teaching “fundamentals of Orthodox culture”.
“The law “On education in the Russian Federation” envisages a new phenomenon – Church accreditation of educational institutions and teachers who teach academic subjects, courses, disciplines (modules) aimed at acquiring knowledge about the foundations of moral and spiritual culture of the peoples of the Russian Federation, about moral principles, about the historical and cultural traditions of a particular religion”, – said the Deputy Chairman of the Synodal Department for religious education and catechism of the hegumen Mitrofan (Shkurin).
On Tuesday at the opening in Moscow of training courses for leaders of diocesan departments of religious education, he noted that the accreditation of teachers will implement diocese.
In addition, he said, according to the new law “On education in RF”, early childhood education once again became the first stage of General education, and this law gives the opportunity to carry out in the kindergartens work on spiritually-moral education of children.
For the introduction of spiritual and moral component in the kindergartens of the Synodal Department for religious education developed by the “Orthodox component of preschool education”, the contents of which involves the introduction of educational and methodological course “fundamentals of Orthodox culture”.
In all secondary schools in Russia from 1 September 2012 it was introduced a course “Basics of religious cultures and secular ethics”. It is studied in the fourth grade at the rate of one hour per week and consists of six modules: “fundamentals of Orthodox culture”, “fundamentals of Islamic culture” “bases of Judaic culture” “Bases of Buddhist culture”, “Basics of world religious cultures”, “fundamentals of secular ethics”. Students and their parents have the right to choose one of these modules.
Earlier, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill announced that the Minister of education Dmitry Livanov was proposed to introduce the teaching of “basics of religious cultures and secular ethics” from the second to the ninth grades. However, as noted by the Primate, even in the case of a positive decision, the introduction of articles module in grades 2-4 will be possible not earlier than the 2016-2017 school year, in grades 5-9 – not previously 2017-2018 school year.
