Secular education is a system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state.
Secular education is a system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state.
Secular educational systems were a modern development intended to replace religious ecclesiastical and rabbinic schools (like the heder) in Western Europe. Secular schools were to function as a cultural foundation to diffuse the values of a human culture that was a product of man's own faculty for reason.
This contrasted against religious education which placed value on tradition - knowledge that was "revealed" - instead of the "human values through which manifested the uniqueness of the human being in nature as a creature who is himself a creator, a being who shapes his environment and who fashions himself within that environment". For Jews the ideal was the Maskil , the Jewish equivalent of Enlightenment philosophers or humanists. [1]
In the French public educational system conspicuous religious symbols have been banned in schools.
While some religious groups are hostile to secularism and see such measures as promoting atheism, [2] [ better source needed ][ unreliable source? ] other citizens claim that the display of any religious symbol constitutes an infringement of the separation of church and state and a discrimination against atheist, agnostic and non-religious people.
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion.
School prayer, in the context of religious liberty, is state-sanctioned or mandatory prayer by students in public schools. Depending on the country and the type of school, state-sponsored prayer may be required, permitted, or prohibited. The United Kingdom also requires daily worship by law, but does not enforce it. Countries which prohibit or limit school prayer often differ in their reasons for doing so. In the United States, school prayer cannot be required of students in accordance with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This is generally rigorously applied in public schools; the Establishment Clause does not prevent prayer in private schools that have no public funding. In Canada, school-sponsored prayer is disallowed under the concept of freedom of conscience as outlined in the Canadian Charter on Rights & Fundamental Freedoms. School-sponsored prayer is disallowed in France as a byproduct of its status as a secular nation.
The Justice and Development Party, abbreviated officially as AK Party in English, is a political party in Turkey self-describing as conservative-democratic. Third-party sources often refer to the party as national conservative, social conservative and espousing neo-Ottomanism. The party is generally regarded as being right-wing on the political spectrum, although some sources have described it as far-right since 2011. It is one of the two major parties of contemporary Turkey along with the Republican People's Party (CHP).
The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public primary and secondary schools. The law is an amendment to the French Code of Education that expands principles founded in existing French law, especially the constitutional requirement of laïcité: the separation of state and religious activities.
Laïcité is the constitutional principle of secularism in France. Article 1 of the French Constitution is commonly interpreted as discouraging religious involvement in government affairs, especially religious influence in the determination of state policies. It also forbids government involvement in religious affairs, and especially prohibits government influence in the determination of religion. Secularism in France includes a right to the free exercise of religion.
Islam is the most practiced religion in Turkey. As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. Most Turkish Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. The established presence of Islam in the region that now constitutes modern Turkey dates back to the later half of the 11th century, when the Seljuks started expanding into eastern Anatolia.
Kemalism, also known as Atatürkism, or The Six Arrows, is the founding and official ideology of the Republic of Turkey. Kemalism, as it was implemented by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk after the declaration of Republic in 1923, was defined by sweeping political, social, cultural and religious reforms designed to separate the new Turkish state from its Ottoman predecessor and embrace a Western-style modernized lifestyle, including the establishment of secularism/laicism, state support of the sciences, free education, gender equality, economic statism and many more. Most of those policies were first introduced to and implemented in Turkey during Atatürk's presidency through his reforms.
India since its independence in 1947 became a Hindu majority state since Partition of India until 1976. Some of the secular values were enshrined in the constitution of India. India's prime minister Indira Gandhi is credited for establishing India as a full & fledged secular state.
Atatürk's Reforms were a series of political, legal, religious, cultural, social, and economic policy changes, designed to convert the new Republic of Turkey into a secular, modern nation-state, implemented under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in accordance with the Kemalist framework. His political party, the Republican People's Party (CHP) ran Turkey as a one-party state, implemented these reforms starting in 1923. After Atatürk's death, his successor İsmet İnönü, continued one-party rule and Kemalist style reforms until the CHP lost to the Democrat Party in Turkey's second, truly multi-party election in 1950.
In France, there is an ongoing social, political, and legal debate concerning the wearing of the hijab and other forms of Islamic coverings in public. The cultural framework of the controversy can be traced to France's history of colonization in North Africa, but escalated into a significant public debate in 1989 when three girls were suspended from school for refusing to remove their headscarves. That incident, referred to in France as l'affaire du foulard or l'affaire du voile, initially focused the controversy on the wearing of the hijab in French public schools. Because of the wide-ranging social debates caused by the controversy, l'affaire du foulard has been compared to the Dreyfus affair in its impact on French culture.
Hijab and burka controversies in Europe revolve around the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, which have become prominent symbols of the presence of Islam in especially Western Europe. In several countries, the adherence to hijab has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal partial or full ban in some or all circumstances. Some countries already have laws banning the wearing of masks in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face. Other countries are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, boushiya, or niqab; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf. The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or hijab may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.
CNCD Decision 323/2006 is a decision of Romania's National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD) regarding the display of religious symbols in public schools. The decision was brought to the CNCD by Emil Moise, a teacher and parent from Buzău County, who stated that the public display of Orthodox icons in classrooms constitutes an infringement of Romania's separation of church and state and discriminates against atheist, agnostic and non-religious people.
In Turkey, secularism or laicism was first introduced with the 1928 amendment of the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the "Religion of the State is Islam", and with the later reforms of Turkey's first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which set the administrative and political requirements to create a modern, democratic, secular state, aligned with Kemalism.
Turkey has historically been a religiously diverse country, with about 20% of non-Muslims on the eve of World War I. The non-Muslim population significantly decreased following the late Ottoman genocides, the population exchange between Greece and Turkey and the emigration of Christians and Jews, so that today, Islam is the largest religion in Turkey. According to the state, 99.8% of the population is initially registered as Muslim. As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. Most Turkish Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. The remaining 0.2% are Christians and adherents of other officially recognised religions like Judaism. The official number of Muslims include people who are irreligious; converted people and anyone who is of a different religion from their Muslim parents, but has not applied for a change of their individual records. These records can be changed or even blanked out on the request of the citizen, by filing an e-government application since May 2020, using a valid electronic signature to sign the electronic application.
Turkey is a secular state in accordance with Article 24 of its constitution. Secularism in Turkey derives from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Six Arrows: republicanism, populism, laïcité, reformism, nationalism and statism. The Turkish government imposes some restrictions on Muslims and other religious groups, as well as Muslim religious expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities.
Secularism—that is, the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state—has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and is frequently understood to be equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion.
The Republic of Turkey has been a secular state since the constitutional amendment of 1937. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk introduced the secularization of the state in the Turkish Constitution of 1924, alongside his reforms. Over 95% of Turkey's population is Muslim, and the suppression of hijab/headscarves and other prominent religious symbols in government institutions and public schools, (similar to policies in France, Quebec and Mexico) has led to heated controversy at times in Turkey. Specifically, it has resulted in a clash between those favoring the secular principles of the state, such as the Turkish Armed Forces, and religious conservatives, including Islamists. In the 21st century, since 2003, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have worked to reverse this, and “raise a pious generation” in Turkey.
Lautsi v. Italy was a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights, which, on 18 March 2011, ruled that the requirement in Italian law that crucifixes be displayed in classrooms of schools does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
Albania has been a secular state since its founding in 1912, despite various changes in political systems. During the 20th century after Independence (1912) the democratic, monarchic and later the totalitarian communist regimes followed a systematic secularisation of the nation and the national culture. The Albanian understanding of secularism has strong influences from the French laïcité.
The Act respecting the laicity of the State, introduced and commonly referred to as Bill 21 or Law 21, is a statute passed by the National Assembly of Quebec in 2019 which asserts that Quebec is a lay state. It prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by certain public employees in positions of authority and grandfathers in those who were already in office when the bill was introduced. The statute operates despite the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and also notwithstanding certain sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.