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.
The Justice and Development Party, abbreviated officially as AK Party in English, is a political party in Turkey self-describing as conservative-democratic. It has been the ruling party of Turkey since 2002. Third-party sources often refer to the party as national conservative, social conservative, right-wing populist and as 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 the separation of civil society and religious society. It discourages religious involvement in government affairs, especially in the determination of state policies as well as the recognition of a state religion. It also forbids government involvement in religious affairs, and especially prohibits government influence in the determination of religion, such that it 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 the Sunni Madhab of 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 based on the ideas and legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
India since its independence in 1947 has been a secular state. The secular values were enshrined in the constitution of India. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru is credited with the formation of the secular republic in the modern history of the country. With the Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976, the Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation. However, the Supreme Court of India in the 1994 case S. R. Bommai v. Union of India established the fact that India was secular since the formation of the republic. The judgement established that there is separation of state and religion. It stated "In matters of State, religion has no place. Any State government which pursues nonsecular on policies or nonsecular course of action acts contrary to the constitutional mandate and renders itself amenable to action under Article 356". Furthermore, constitutionally, state-owned educational institutions are prohibited from imparting religious instructions, and Article 27 of the constitution prohibits using tax-payers money for the promotion of any religion.
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 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 and implemented these reforms, starting in 1923. After Atatürk's death, his successor İsmet İnönü continued the one-party rule and Kemalist style reforms until the CHP lost to the Democrat Party in Turkey's second 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.
Religion in Turkey consists of various religious beliefs. While it is known that Islam is the most common religion in the country, published data on the proportion of people belonging to this religion are contradictory. The state registering everyone as Muslim by birth misleads the percentage of Muslims in Turkey. There are many people who follow other religions or do not adhere to any religion but are officially classified as 'Muslim' in official records unless they make a contrary claim. 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 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 headscarf controversy in Turkey was a 20th and early 21st century controversy about women wearing Islamic headscarves. The Republic of Turkey had 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 90% of Turkey's population is Muslim, and the suppression of hijab/headscarves and other prominent religious symbols in government institutions and public schools, led to heated controversy at times in Turkey. Specifically, it 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 early 21st century, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reversed this, and worked to "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.
The French ban on face covering is the result of an act of parliament passed in 2010 banning the wearing of face-covering headgear, including masks, helmets, balaclavas, niqābs and other veils covering the face, and full body costumes and zentais in public places, except under specified circumstances. This ban does not apply to the hijab, as it does not cover the face. The ban does apply to the burqa, a full-body covering, if it covers the face. In April 2011, France became the first European country to impose a ban on full-face veils in public areas.
The Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies is an independent Palestinian non-profit and non-governmental organization that advocates human rights, democracy and tolerance from a secular perspective. It conducts theoretical and applied research, publishes studies and journals, operates educational programs and workshops and undertakes advocacy work. Its headquarters are in Ramallah and it has an office in Gaza.
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.