Slobodan Sadžakov, a professor at the Faculty of Education in Sombor, said that pressure from the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) for schools to have religious studies as a compulsory subject is increasing, which once again demonstrates ‘the Church’s enormous influence and the capitulation of the secular state”.
Sadžakov told the Autonomija website that already with the introduction of religious education in schools, albeit as a non-compulsory subject, a theocratic regime had been incorporated into the education system, ‘without public discussion, at the behest of politics and the Church’.
Schools, he said, have actually become branches of the Church. “This has nothing to do with studying, but rather with initiation into religion, a kind of a recruitment centre, if you will,” Sadžakov warned.
He added that religious education has nothing to do with secular schools, stating that that subject, despite its name, differs very much from science in some important aspects. “Religious education is based on dogmatic content and faith, which is basically the opposite of science. Schools’ basic function is not to draw someone to a certain religion, nor to promote any dogmatic and therefore indoctrinating content. There should be no religious propaganda in schools,’ Sadžakov concluded.
(Novi Magazin, 26.07.2022)
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