According to an OKO.press poll from November 2022, only 29 percent of people want religion to be taught in schools.
Our data from Bolesławiec show that, year by year, the number of students who do not want to attend religion classes is growing. We presented them in the article “The number of Bolesławiec school students who do not attend religion classes is growing”.
Among primary schools, the number of children who do not attend religion classes doubled over two years. A year ago, more than 20% of children in primary schools did not attend religion classes (in 2021, it was only 10%). The highest rate was recorded at Primary School No. 2, where almost one in four children did not attend religion classes. Among secondary schools, Zespół Szkół Mechanicznych was the most religious. More than three quarters of its students attended religion classes a year ago. Zespół Szkół Budowlanych was the most secular.
In 2020, teaching religion in kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools in Bolesławiec cost residents more than PLN 1.7 million.
According to Oko.press
(...) the catechetical curriculum developed by the Church is an instruction for shaping a person with fervent religiosity, free of doubts, resistant to secular currents, an “apostle” ready to praise and defend the Church. It is also a far-reaching interference in personality, based on teachings about sin, sexuality and the formation of conscience. (...) The religion curriculum contains much content that contradicts contemporary knowledge, as well as content that is educationally risky and inconsistent with the attitude of openness and tolerance that the Polish school is meant to cultivate.(...)
In Poland, a dispute is ongoing between the Catholic Church and Minister of Education Barbara Nowacka, who, through a regulation issued by the Ministry of National Education on July 26, 2024, allowed classes to be combined when fewer than seven students are interested in studying religion.
People associated with the Church in Bolesławiec tell us that priests are mostly worried about the money they receive from catechesis, where matches or sports are often watched. During catechism classes, students often eat their second breakfast and watch films on Netflix. “This is simply cheating the state,” says our source.
It is worth making an informed decision about whether to enroll your child in religion classes in the 2024/25 school year. And because this decision still belongs not to the child but to the parent or legal guardian, we are directing the following poll to parents.