한국 종교교육의 과제와 전망

Abstract

Religious education in Korea has been mainly performed by religious orders themselves and secular schools. Again, there are two kinds of secular schools to offer religious curricular: public (non-parochial) schools and parochial schools. The Basic Education Law articulates, "Government-established (public) schools should not give a religious education for a particular religion." However, this article is often misunderstood even as prohibition of religious education in parochial schools. And academic studies of religion do not matter with this article. There are almost 400 parochial schools in Korea. Religion has been officially included in regular curricular of junior high schools and high schools since 1980s. It is the most important issue how the education for a particular religion can harmonize with the academic study of religion in parochial schools. Non-religious students are often forced to attend particular parochial schools in Korea. Thus it might be against the religious free-exercise article of the Constitution that non-religious students or the students of other religions are compelled to take the course for a particular religion. Despite present problems, it is still necessary that students have chances to learn religious and spiritual sense for their life. In this context, religion might be thought of as a national capital for spiritual welfare of the people.