HIS-Press-Service, 1982 (7. évfolyam, 22-24. szám)
1982-06-01 / 24. szám
HIS Press Service No.25, June 1982 Page 4 The Effect of the 5-Day School Week upon Religious Instruction In spring of 1982 the Ministry of Education published guidelines for the introduction of the 5-day school week; exact instructions and implementary regulations still remain to be issued. It is already possible, however, to evaluate the consequences of this reform upon religious instruction. It is generally known that in the cities, and also to some extent in the villages, the number of pupils participating in religious instruction has decreased to a minimum. On the other hand, there are also localities in which 10-12, or even more, hours of religious instruction are held weekly in the schools. As welcome as such a situation may be, it also involves a burdensome increase in the work-' load of the priest involved, since - with but few exceptions - the State does not allow lay persons to give any kind of religious instruction. The question arises as to how priests who are burdened with the obligation to give several hours of religious instruction in various schools will be able to hold the full number of hours during the reduced five-day school week; that is, how will it be possible to provide the legally allowed school religious instruction if the existing restrictions upon it remain unchanged? Since the reform does not foresee a reduction in the subject matter taught in the schools, the new educational reform calls for parcelling out the lost hours of school time into the time directly before and after the normal school day; there will also be a decrease in the length of school vacations. In some schools, especially in Budapest, there have been instances where certain school hours are held before the beginning of the normal school day, which means that the children have to be at school at 7:30, or in some cases 6:30. This time before the beginning of normal classes, however, was intended for religious instruction. If these hours now become a part of the normal school day, religious instruction could only be held in the 7th or 8th school hour, which is requiring too much of 7-14- year-old children. The situation is even more difficult, when not simply impossible, in schools where a lack of sufficient classrooms makes it necessary to teach some of the pupils in the morning and others in the afternoon - a system widely practiced in Hungary. A further difficulty is encountered in the so-called district schools (In 1979, there were 1,054 district schools.) which are attended by pupils from a larger area who are bussed to and from school. 68,800 pupils attended such schools in 1979. The bus arrives at the school at the beginning of the normal school day and picks the children up again immediately after school is over - at the very latest at the end of the 6th school hour - and returns them to their homes. In such cases, there is no time available for religious instruction.
