July 2012
This survey was made by the “Center of Collaboration for Democracy”. The survey was conducted by Stepan Danielyan (the head of the working group), Ara Ghazaryan (lawyer), Hovhannes Hovhannisyan (religious scholar) and Arthur Avtandilyan (the interviewer). The survey has 128 pages.
The purpose of the survey was to monitor the religious teaching at Armenian public schools under Toledo guiding principles for which the framework of domestic legislation on religion education, including the contents of textbooks and the methodology of teachings were studied. The documents of international legal instruments and especially the case law of the European Court of Human Rights have been used widely. We have done several visits to schools located at different regions of Armenia and met with school principals and teachers including the representatives of regional public education and religious organizations. The survey including the conclusions were entirely based on personal accounts of respondents obtained by interviews.
The authors did not concentrate on the contents of the textbooks since they thought that a separate survey was needed for that task.
The main concerns were raised in respect of the following areas:
– Practicing of some religious rites or some elements of religious rites during classes,
– Incitement of hate speech and preaching against religious organizations other than the Armenian Apostolic Church,
– Indoctrination of the system of belief of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the religious educational system and the absence of alternative teaching mechanism for pupils of other beliefs,
– Unification of religious and national identity.
The survey was conducted in Armenian. Below we present the last chapter of the book in which we set forth the conclusions and recommendations to the authorities of Armenia.
This research enables to come to the following suggestions:
1. The textbook of the “Armenian Church History” tends to teach not the history of religion but the belief system of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It does not as such contradict the Constitution of the RA, the laws and the international principles if the democratic methods of the goal and methodology of the teachings are maintained, if the teaching is conducted under principles of objectivity and pluralism. However, the aim and method of teaching raise some serious problems from the point of a number of provisions of domestic and international laws. These problems are:
1.1. the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church has absolute privilege in religious teaching at State educational institutions;
1.2. the religious teaching methods are aimed at indoctrinating the belief system of the Armenian Apostolic Church which is prohibited under Article 2 of the Protocol 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights;
1.3. In the course of the teaching process the creed of Armenian Apostolic Church is taught very actively which is a widespread phenomenon supported by authorities. This approach violates the secular nature of the education defined under part 3 of the article 4 of the Law on Education of the RA. Moreover, such teaching method is a demonstration of a lack of respect towards the philosophical and religious beliefs of parents.
1.4. during the teaching process and in the school environment an active anti-preaching campaign towards other religious beliefs, trends and their followers is implemented which amounts to intolerance with some characteristics of proselytism. In this context the State authorities show inaction as a result of which the Republic of Armenia violates its positive obligations under Article 2 of Protocol 1, Article 9 and Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
1.5. the attendance to religious classes is mandatory which contradicts the above requirements of the Convention. Though the Article 2 of the Protocol 1 of the Convention does not prohibit the national States to organize religious classes at public schools, the States, in order to prevent the conflict between the religious and philosophical views of pupils and parents, are obliged to establish alternative mechanisms in their educational system. This derives from the fundamental approach under which the parent takes the primary responsibility for the education of his/her child and upon implementation of its natural obligation he/she may demand the State to respect his/her religious and philosophical beliefs. At the same time, during the teaching process of the “Armenian Church History” the thesis of national and religious identification is preached which violates the rights of minorities. Consequently, as long as the subject of “Armenian Church History” is educated at public schools as a belief system of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church and as long as within the same framework religious preaching is practiced, it is strongly necessary to provide the pupils holding other religious beliefs with an opportunity to skip those classes without any adverse effect, while at the same time enabling them to select an alternative secular subject.
2. On the basis of the above conclusions, we present the following recommendations to the Government of the RA:
2.1. It is necessary to reconsider the role of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church in the sphere of public education under the Armenian law “On the Relationships of the Republic of Armenia and Armenian Apostolic Holy Church”. In particular, this concerns to the matters of elaboration of text books and curriculums of religious teaching subjects at State educational institutions, as well as in defining the qualification standards of teachers and in the process of nomination of teachers for schools.
2.2. It is necessary to prohibit the supervisory functions of the Center of Christian Education, which operates under the aegis of the Armenian Apostolic Church, in the sphere of public education. The granting to a religious institution any such function violates the constitutional principle of separation of the State and the church as well as the secular nature of education prescribed by legislation since this principle prohibits the State to give priority to any religion or belief and under this principle the State becomes an independent arbiter and the freedom of religion and conscience. The Center of Christian Education is currently operating with numerous violations of the above principles which as such are eventually attributable to the State.
2.3. It is also necessary to reconsider fundamentally the content of the text-books of the “Armenian Church History” by concentrating more on the historical events rather than on religious preaching.
2.4. The State authorities should implement their respective functions in order to prohibit the preaching of the belief system of the Armenian Apostolic Church at schools and preaching against other religions and beliefs. This suggestion should not be interpreted as meaning to reject the idea of teaching the pupils the belief system of the Armenian Apostolic Church. As it was mentioned earlier, such teaching approach does not contradict the rights of freedom of thought, religion and conscience if the religious teaching is not aimed at indoctrinating any religion or belief and if the teaching is implemented in observance of democratic principles of objectivity, neutrality and pluralism. As mentioned by the European Court of Human Rights, the presence of traditions does not release a State from the obligation to ensure the rights and freedoms defined by the Convention.
2.5. Alternative systems of education of religious subjects should be set up for the pupils whose parents do not want their children to take part in the courses in question. The application of such alternative systems should not affect the evaluation criteria of the pupil and the refusal to take part in the course should not be stigmatized by the public.
2.6. .The preaching or religious activity of the representatives of any religion or church should be limited at secondary schools, including the lectures on various topics, upbringing teachings providing the maintenance of secular principle at secondary schools,
2.7. The subject of “History of Armenian Church” should be substituted by the subject of “History of Religions” and the main emphasize should be put not on the religious preaching of any religion or religions but on the teaching of objective and comprehensive knowledge on world and national religions defined under Toledo Principles.
