Religious education in schools

On December 6, The Sunday Times reported the Archbishop's delegate for Catechesis, René Camilleri, lamenting that "students were simply 'regurgitating' answers in their Matsec examinations from parish catechesis lessons." He also reportedly said that "even at A-level, stereotyped, prefabricated answers were evidently being studied by heart" and he called for prioritising in-service training for religion teachers.

Going by the report, the thrust of Fr Camilleri's questions was mostly pedagogical. He is arguing that religious education (RE) is being confused with a doctrine-oriented approach. This results in poor performance and atrocious results.

If we take this issue a bit further, one could argue that though at face value, this problem has to do with the education of RE teachers and the way they teach it, in fact it is a symptom of a wider issue: that of the relationship between religion and RE in schools.

If my experience as a teacher in Malta (back in the 1980s) is anything to go by, I remember distinctly how difficult it was for me to teach RE in primary schools due to the very strict instructions we were given. While we were encouraged to adopt a cross-curricular approach and a pretty much student-centered pedagogy in all subjects, a strict syllabus actually demanded that we teach religion and not RE. More precisely, this syllabus looked more like a catechism manual.

I remember being reprimanded by a school inspector who was enraged because in a class that he observed I failed to tell my eight-year-old pupils that baptism leaves in us an indelible "sign of character" (sinjal ta' karattru). He then took over my class and inflicted on us what, to his mind, was the right Catholic doctrine of baptism.

One hopes this has changed after so many years, but these restrictions must be contextualised in terms of how RE is very much conflated with religion in schools. I always felt that whatever I was instructed to 'teach' in RE contributed nothing to the pupils' understanding of the value of religion in the world, let alone any form of ethical education.

In the 1990s I found myself educating student teachers in Britain, where I supervised students teaching in State schools across the Midlands. In England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (all of which have their own curriculums) all State schools, whether Faith-schools or not, have to teach RE as stipulated by the curriculum.

Pupils learn about religions, where the ethical, historical, artistic, literary, and other values are studied in some depth. In the case of Faith schools, the ethos of the school also includes religious formation. In schools that are not tied to any faith, pastoral care is provided by different faiths through their religious representative.

This is not without controversy, and Tony Blair, who is a great supporter of Faith schools, got a lot of flak during his premiership. However, I wanted to bring up the example of Faith schools because even in such schools the distinction bet-ween RE and religion is clear. Whether one agrees with the State sponsoring Faith schools is another question.

As I now reside in the US and work in teacher education I can say that the situation is not very different when it comes to the distinction between RE and religion in schools. Even though in the US, States cannot sponsor Faith schools, private schools, including independent Faith-based schools, broadly abide by the distinction. Contrary to what some might think, this distinction gives scope for more freedom and understanding between different faiths and non-religious ways of life.

The problem with Maltese State schools is that this distinction - which is supposedly enshrined in Malta's Constitution - is never really exercised. One reason is that State and Church are not properly distinguished within the realms of State provision. This creates problems, and the effects of these problems are now being felt by no less than the Catholic Church itself.

Even when one claims that Malta is predominantly Catholic, the conflation between State and religion in schools is detrimental to that very majority which remains intransigent when it comes to the distinction between faith and ethics in education.

Because there is no proper distinction within and outside schools, Maltese society is facing a higher degree of religious ignorance and intolerance. This is witnessed by the hysterical discussions on issues such as public festivals, crucifixes in public spaces and censorship; not to mention civil issues like marriage, fertility, sexuality, gender, and religious pluralism.

Fr Camilleri's recent comments should be taken very seriously. However, the discussion cannot start from where he leaves it. The discussion is even more foundational and it goes to the root of what is the role of faith and religion in Malta.

Dr Baldacchino is associate professor at Columbia University, New York.