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Context

RE and its status in Estonia is marked by sharp discussions and by the fact that according to last census from year 2000 only 29% of the Estonian population identified themselves as believers (14% Lutherans and 13% Orthodox). After 50 years under the occupation of the Soviet totalitarian and atheistic regime - which forbade RE in every form, there is an uneasy agreement in society about the need for some kind of RE. There exists much doubt and prejudice towards RE, as towards religion in general. This has its roots in the active atheistic propaganda of the past and in the lack of adequate knowledge. Whereas society in general agrees, that some knowledge about world religions and the basic terms as well as ethics could be useful, there is also a general question, how to guarantee absolute neutrality of the subject, which is believed to be necessary to avoid religious propaganda.

There is a concern than an RE teacher, who is a believer of some sort themselves, would be unable to stay neutral in the classroom. One of the concerns, opposing the reorganisation of RE, goes back to some negative experiences of the first days of RE after the re-gaining of independence. At the time when schools became open to RE in the late 80-ies, many eager people without pedagogical experience and professional skills rushed to teach RE. Sometimes RE turned into confessional instruction and those individual failures have been exaggerated and generalised. Because of the marginal position of religion in society, personal contacts with religious people can be limited to actively proselytising congregations, and new religious movements, confirming the prejudices about the aggressiveness of the religious world view.

Legal framework

The most general law regulating education in Estonia is the Education Act, which was passed in 1992. There RE is described as an, "optional and non-confessional subject". The principles, and some general topics of religious studies, are set out in the curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education. According to the Education Act RE is compulsory for the school if fifteen pupils wish to be taught. In the primary classes parents should decide about the participation of their children in RE lessons; at the gymnasium level pupils should decide this independently. There is no alternative subject to RE for the pupils who don’t attend the RE classes to gain knowledge or become informed about world religions and ethics. For RE teachers, both theological as well pedagogical training is compulsory.

The real situation is much more complicated because the schools do not have any obligations for the matter. For example, it is not regulated how to know if there are some interested persons – the schools do not have obligations to introduce the subject to the pupils and the parents or even to ask, if anybody would be interested to have RE. A lot of confusion is connected also to the different use and common interpretation of the name of the subject. ‘Usuõpetus’ and ‘Usundiõpetus’ are often understood as narrow Christian Instruction. More neutral ‘Religiooniõpetus’ is not officially mentioned in legislative documents. Till now all the proposals in Parliament which have tried to solve those problems, have been rejected.

There have been debates to reorganise the voluntary religious education into compulsory education to give a non-confessional overview of Christianity and other world religions and to help pupils to understand the impact of different religions on the world’s culture and, perhaps most importantly, to prepare them for the life in the pluralistic and multicultural world. There has been a proposal for one compulsory core-course per 3-years school stage and in addition two optional courses.

In real school life, it is often headteachers who decide whether RE will be taught in their schools or not. Thus, the state of RE often depends on their personal attitudes and initiative.

Until the spring of 2006 in one of Estonia's most highly regarded schools (Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu) there was for 9 years non confessional RE, centred on the explaining of world religions and religious terms, compulsory for pupils who had chosen the branch of humanities. On the spring of 2006 the Chancellor of Justice filed a demand to change the RE to an optional subject as in compulsory form as this was a contradiction to the statement in Education Act, which states that RE must be optional subject (not specifying the exact content of the subject). No subject (disregarding the name) can be compulsory which deals mostly with religious thematics. The ground for this decision was the conviction that “totally neutral, pluralistic and analytical teaching” of this subject is in today's Estonia is unachievable and so it carries in itself the danger to affect the children religiously. This is the reason why it is not possible to let the board of the school to decide these matters. Despite the opposition of the board and pupils the compulsory RE in Hugo Treffner Gymnasium was abolished.

Today in Schools

Even the Ministry of Education does not know in how many schools RE is taught. According to some statistics RE is taught in about 60 schools from 600. It is hard to get the entire picture about the spread of RE in our schools because the subject is often taught under different names and in different forms. In some schools a subject, named differently, is an compulsory subject at least for one year, in other schools a student can choose between different subjects. But mostly it is not organised. There is however from 2002 a proposed syllabus for RE for schools which is, at this time, still under discussion.

Contents

According to the proposed syllabus, Religious Education in Estonia focuses in primary school on Bible stories, in secondary school on the history of world religions and comparative religion studies.

Aims of RE

Basic principles and targets of RE

Structure of the Syllabus

Schoolstage (3-years)	Core courses One course is 35-45 minutes	Optional courses One course is 35-45 minutes
1.	Grandparents’ heritage Culture and traditions	New Testament stories	Old Testament stories
2.	Ethics Human ethics and 10 commandments	Bible and culture	Religions in Estonia
3.	World Religions Major religions, overview	Ethical Issues	Religion and Culture
4.	Human and Religion Philosophy, anthropology, phenomenology of religion	Bible studies	Church History