Education

General principles

  • Education  should fit the individual for life as a full participant in society,  and teach self-respect and respect for the dignity of others.
  • Education  should promote intellectual honesty. It should foster a love of  learning and an appreciation of the supremacy of reason and the  scientific method in the search for knowledge.
  • Education for citizenship should be based on a framework of human rights and  responsibilities and should impart the knowledge, cultivate the  understanding, and foster the critical skills essential for individual  engagement with society and politics.
  • It should fit children and  young people for life in a democratic society underpinned by empathy,  human rights and the rule of law.

Lifestance education

  • Education  should ensure that children are informed about a range of religious and  nonreligious lifestances and have autonomy in their choice of their own  lifestance.
  • The school should bring an academic discipline to  bear in presenting the beliefs, practices and values of different  lifestances as well as assisting pupils to develop their own responses  to them.
  • Publicly funded schools should not promote one  particular religious or non-religious lifestance as the only correct one  but teach about the various lifestances (including Humanism) factually  and in an objective way. Where parents or young people are offered an  option of education into a particular lifestance, Humanism must be one  option alongside the religions.
  • Education directed at fostering  inter-cultural understanding that includes religious viewpoints should  also include Humanism as a non-religious lifestance and include the  perspectives and culture of non-religious people.

NB:  This text incorporates two small wording changes agreed by the EHF  Board so to align EHF and IHEU policy after IHEU adopted at its 2010  General Assembly virtually the same policy as EHF.  The word ‘empathy’  is an addition and the term ‘education into’ has been substituted for  ‘instruction in’.

Many questions and problems arise in the application of this policy in practice:

Analysis of variables in different possible approaches

Across Europe there is huge variation in the treatment of religion and belief, including non-religious beliefs, in schools. This derives from the differences from place to place in religious, cultural and historical backgrounds. Here we analyse the different approaches possible, some of which are acceptable, others not. 

Examples of humanist and secularist approaches

Here we look at humanist and secularist approaches to non-confessional religious and humanist education and provide links to some practical examples of such education.

Some implications of our general policy

Here we comment briefly on some implications of our general policy.

Human rights aspects of education policy

Here we highlight human rights aspects of education policy with reference to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The OSCE’s Toledo guidelines

Here we refer to the OSCE’s Toledo guidelines, which set down the requirements for the sort of educational approach we advocate in some detail.

A short section of The European Dream deals with education.
See also our response to the EU Commission consultation on Schools for the 21st Century

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This content last updated 3 June 2013 @ 9:15 am