site.btaVazrazhdane Urge for Immediate Tabling of Bill Adding Virtues and Religion to School Curriculum

The Vazrazhdane Parliamentary Group on Thursday urged Education and Science Minister Krassimir Valchev to table immediately draft legislation proposing the introduction of Virtues and Religion as a new subject in the school curriculum.

Addressing Parliament in a declaration to this effect, Vazrazhdane MP Ivaylo Papov said that, complying with a request from Teach for Bulgaria, Valchev's Ministry had extended by a week the 30-day time limit for the submission of proposals. On June 19, the non-governmental organization argued in a press release that the period of the public consultation of the bill amending the Pre-school and School Education Act was too short even though 536 comments have been submitted to the portal, Papov said.

"Hidden behind heaps of empty words, the representatives of the global misanthropes, who were kicked out of Washington, contrived to entrench themselves in Brussels and want to delay and reject the new school subject Virtues and Religion - a subject that was barred from Bulgarian schools in the course of decades and that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is about to introduce," the declaration reads. "For an attack on all fronts, ten days ago Continue the Change (CC) moved a bill which makes these changes pointless," the Vazrazhdane MP said.

On June 30, CC said it had submitted changes to proposed revisions to the bill, rejecting a proposal to make confessional religious education mandatory in public schools, describing it as risky and discriminatory. Instead, it proposed keeping this component elective for those who wish to participate, while introducing a compulsory subject titled Virtues and Values, to be taught to all pupils regardless of background. 

"We in Vazrazhdane are certain that CC and Democratic Bulgaria will use all possible parliamentary devices to delay the introduction of the Religions subject, and we in Vazrazhdane will stand in their way," Papov warned.

"We call again on the Minister of Education and Science to discontinue his relationship with Open Society at the earliest legal opportunity. We call on the Minister to rid his Political Cabinet of advisers directly linked with the Sorosoids of Open Society, Teach for Bulgaria and America for Bulgaria," Papov emphasized.

"The main focus will be on virtues, not religion. Every parent will have the option to choose whether their child studies ethics or religion (Orthodox Christianity or Islam), but the core curriculum will be non-confessional, pluralistic, and with a strong emphasis on universal human values," Minister Valchev said in a radio interview on June 7.

In its reasoning to the bill, the Council of Ministers argued that the new subject is supposed to equip children with knowledge and skills to get familiar with their past. The religious component of the curriculum is explained by the fact that the entire European culture and civilization is a product of the Christian family. The purpose of the school and of the education system is to make children good persons, to cultivate in them virtues, moral persuasions and responsibility.  

Opponents to the idea of the new subject argue that faith-segregated classes spell a huge risk to the ethnic and religious peace in mixed-population areas and to Bulgaria's national security. They criticize the use of sources and postulates from Russian Orthodoxy in drawing up the curriculum. They note that the compulsory study of religion at school comes into conflict with the Constitution, which defines Bulgaria as a secular state. In their opinion, the State is cast in an extrinsic role of organizing and financing with public funds an initiative that should be handled by the religious denominations. The critics opine that any form or religious instruction is a type of ideological indoctrination of children to be loyal to the ruling regime at the expense of the values of traditional family upbringing.