A Hearing in the Council of Europe underlines the importance of parental rights in Education
Last Tuesday I had the privilege to participate in a
roundtable discussion organised by ECPM and the European Centre for Law and
Justice (ECLJ) with the title: “The Rights of the Parents and Children
belonging to Religious Minorities”. This Hearing was organised on
the occasion of the discussion in the Council of Europe of a motion
for a resolution on the "Protection of the rights of
parents and children belonging to religious minorities".
Other participants were MPs Ben-Oni Ardelean, Valeriu Ghilețchi,
Jeffrey Donaldson, Titus Corlețean, Ronan Mullen and Grégor Puppinck.
Bellow you can find the full text of my contribution. I would like to
especially thank Jett Weigand-Timmer for the background information she
provided.
The rights of the parents and children belonging to religious minorities
I would
first like to congratulate the organizers of this roundtable for taking the
initiative to discuss a very important issue that concerns millions of parents
around the world. I am also truly grateful for giving me the opportunity to
share a few thoughts with you about the “freedom of parents to educate and
raise children according to their beliefs”.
In the
Netherlands where I come from, everyone knows that our country rests on polders
that are surrounded by rivers. These rivers are a source of wealth, because
they make the soil very rich. But these rivers are also a threat, because they
could flood in times of storm and rain. Ever since the medieval times, our
ancestors have built dikes to protect their land. Sometimes, these dikes broke
because the forces of nature were too strong. Then, the dikes had to be
reinforced. But they always knew that they could not do this alone. They also
had to rely on their neighbors to keep their stretch of the dike in a
good condition. This was not easy as there quite a few differences within
our country. The Christian community became divided after the reformation and
we witnessed this split up in churches and local communities. For example, a
catholic would not buy from a protestant or socialist butcher etc. However, the
threat the rivers posed kept the people together. This is called the polder-model. In
a nutshell, it means that even if you disagree, you have to work
together to save the land. People were living
side-by-side in separate communities, but respected each other. One
group should not overrule each other; they should be interdependent.
This
is also the basis of the freedom of religion or belief: That people have the
freedom to express or live their faith and being respected.
How did this translate itself in the freedom of education in the Netherlands?
In the 19th century,
the Kingdom of the Netherlands got its first school laws. But not all parents
agreed with the state schools that the government wanted. The constitution of
1848 declared the freedom to offer education. It meant that the private
schools got the right to offer education but on their own expenses.
Schools in the Netherlands are now equal, even financially.
They receive the same funds from the Government as public
schools. The majority of them are private. They have their own board and are
not governed by the State. It looks like this is a good guarantee for the
connection of values in schools and at home. All schools are publicly
supervised, so financially and in quality there is no difference. Schools
are different in worldview, religion and school-concept and parents are free to
choose the schools according to their own beliefs, worldview and pedagogical
opinion. The State should draft laws which protect family and contribute to
its development. The State should also protect children, if family does
not fulfill its obligations and rights according to the good of
the children.
Schools should
therefore be complementary to the family. They should never
substitute it. It should be up to the family to tell the schools in
which way it needs their help in the education of their children and not to the
schools to impose to the family their vision and education. In the children’s
education, schools and family should work together and not contradict each
other. The work of the schools is a prolongation of the work of the family, they
should be doing what the family cannot do. Therefore, I think the Dutch system
is a beautiful system because it gives this freedom. I do not believe
that anyone should impose their values on the society (like the secularists are
trying to do).
Concluding
these short remarks, I think that we should always guard the freedom of
education so as to give parents the right to educate and raise their
children according to their religious views and to empower also every minority
in society with the freedom and the means to do so. In the system in the
Netherlands, minorities have the freedom to found their schools according to
their beliefs. As in the Netherlands, we all have to work together
in this battle against the tide. In our societies, we all need to work
together respecting the multi-religious and diverse backgrounds of different
groups without ruling over the conscience of one another.
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