Doctor of Law I.V. Ponkin, Doctor of Law, Prof. M.N. Kuznetsov and A.Yu. Soloviev on the draft federal law abolishing the division of the school curriculum into federal, regional and school components

The State and Religion website published the conclusion (see parts one and two ) of Doctor of Law, Director of the Institute of State-Confessional Relations and Law I.V. Ponkina, Doctor of Legal Sciences, Professor of the Department of State Construction and Law of the Russian Civil Civil Service M.N. Kuznetsov, as well as the chief specialist of the Moscow Department of Education and senior researcher at the Institute of Content and Teaching Methods of the Russian Academy of Education A.Yu. Solovyov on the draft Federal Law “On Amendments to Certain Acts of the Russian Federation (in terms of changing the concept and structure of the state educational standard)”, presented in June 2007 by the Ministry of Education and Science, which provides for the abolition of the division of the school curriculum into federal, regional and school components and, therefore, deprives local authorities of the opportunity to introduce defense education into the curriculum as a regional component.

The authors of the conclusion come to the conclusion that this bill “does not meet the educational needs of citizens and, especially, regions, contradicts the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and flagrantly violates the principle of federalism in the field of education.”

In their opinion, “the adoption of the bill will lead to an unlawful restriction of the rights of the peoples of Russia to national-cultural development, will make it practically impossible to preserve and develop national languages and cultures in the field of education, and will block the implementation by the educational system of the Russian Federation of one of its most important functions - national-cultural reproduction peoples of Russia and Russian multinational society as a whole."

In particular, considering the consequences of the adoption of the law in the field of spiritual and moral education and the study of the foundations of religious culture, I.V. Ponkin, M.N. Kuznetsov and A.Yu. Soloviev note:

“The bill does not meet the educational needs of citizens; the goal is to stop the practice of teaching religious culture courses in schools. In fact, this bill eliminates the teaching of religious culture courses in a number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation (“Orthodox Culture”, “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture”, “History of Orthodox Culture” land of Smolensk", "Fundamentals of Islamic culture", "Tradition", "Torah" and similar), which are currently being implemented (for a long period, in some regions of the Russian Federation - over 10 years) in compliance with the principle of voluntariness within the framework of school and /or regional component of the state educational standard of general education.

<...>

Judging by numerous statements by the Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation A.A. Fursenko, instead of elective courses in Orthodox culture, an attempt is being made to introduce a compulsory religious studies course ("History of Russian Religions", etc.) based on non-religious and even atheistic ideological approaches, which is unacceptable for the majority of believing citizens. According to many experts, the religious studies course is as ideological as the course in the study of religious culture, which legally does not allow introducing the religious studies course “History of Religions of Russia” as a compulsory course.

The proposed bill emasculates the educational component of the educational process in general education institutions. A school can form moral, educational and national-cultural values in a child only on the basis of an existing social educational demand. Such formation should take into account the principles of ideological diversity and freedom of ideological choice (Articles 13 and 14 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, paragraph 5 of Article 2 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education”; Article 3 of the Federal Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” dated September 26, 1997 No. 125 -FZ (with subsequent amendments)). That is, in each specific school - based on the student population, ideological preferences, ethnic and religious affiliation of their parents.

The bill eliminates the existing regional systems of spiritual and moral education of minors, since such systems are based on the use of regional and school components of the state educational standard of general education."

Sources