Unrest among Christian schools in Norway and Sweden about political trends
Språkskolans förskola
Northern Europe
Swedish and Norwegian Christian schools worry about their future. The government has decided to withhold millions of euros of subsidy.
Next year, the Norwegian government will already decrease the budget for private schools by 51.5 million NOK (more than 4 million euros). And that is only the beginning. Within five years the schools will receive more than half a billion NOK less, the state budget that was presented last Friday reads.
The Ministry of Education explains that combined primary and secondary schools have received double grants compared to schools which only offer primary or secondary classes. This will now be corrected, Minister Tonje Brenna says.
The savings are also part of the plan of the Education Ministry to spend less money on private schools and strenghten the public system.
Combined school
The Association of Christian Free Schools worries strongly about this development. “It will mean that schools have to lay off staff”, acting general secretary Sidsel Høland Olausson says to Vart Land. She points out that a combined school is much more expensive than a school that offers either primary or secondary education.
For Olausson, the cut in subsidy came unexpected. She argues that the government attacks human rights by making it almost impossible for some schools to stay alive. “It must be possible to offer free schools all over the country, not just in cities where you can start large schools", she says to Vart Land.
Christian Democrat Kjel Ingolf Ropstad says that he is provoked that “the government is once again attacking the possibility of choosing a different school.” He says that his party campaigns strongly “against cutting the entire compensation.”
Consent
In Sweden, also locally, politicians are suspicious of Christian schools. A Christian school does table prayers with its preschool students. Now, local politicians want the practice to be banned.
That a Christian school says table prayers seems to have been a surprise for the local politicians of the Swedish municipality of Gothenburg, Dagen writes. They discovered the practice when the school wanted a reorganisation.
Table prayers may even violate the Convention of the Rights of the Child, says Ingrid Andreae, the chairwoman of the preschool committee in the region. She points out that table prayer is only allowed by law if the children can consent to it.
Exposed
The ruling parties of the municipality now want to challenge the school over the practice, Dagen writes. They want the religious elements to be removed from the common curriculum of the school and demand that the school ask students to consent to the prayer.
The municipality recently also rejected the application of the school to reorganise into a different type of organisation. The authorities justified their rejection by pointing out that children “may be exposed to religious influence” at the preschool.
Conflict
However, the Solrosens Förskolor disagrees with that ruling. Its lawyers argue that the preschool does not violate the law at all. Principal Hanna Winderö tells Swedish media that she does not understand the ruling. “Pedagogically and legally trained professionals have said that we are staying within the boundaries of the law”, she argues.
She believes that this experience is part of a “larger ideological conflict that affects all preschool activities in Sweden.”
Dagen points out that the Convention of the Rights of the Child, to which the politicians refer also contains another clause: Children have the right to spiritual development. “That must also be included if this case ends with a legal assessment”, the newspaper writes.
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