News, March 2004

PSOE plans to keep Religious Education option,...

but not impose it as under the current government's law. RE teachers, including Evangelical ones, will be goverened by normal laws of government employment. This means they will become state employees, rather than employees of the churches.

Up to now, the RE teachers have been the appointees of the churches, but paid by the government, but now the churches may lose the right to determine who is suitable to teach their brand of religious education. Last year a Catholic teacher was sacked as she was living 'in sin' with a man with whom she was not married. The churches will no longer be allowed to expect the teachers of their 'religion' to live according to their value systems.

Whether this is really what the Socialists plan will of course need to be seen in the course of time.