Finland Schools Offer Islamic Studies for Muslim children
In Finland, every school is obliged to offer subject education in Islam for Muslim children, when at least three students would select it instead of the majority Evangelic Lutheran religious education or alternatively Ethics.
Whereas until now the contents of teaching and learning for minority religion subjects (i.e. not Evangelic Lutheran) such as Islam, Mormonism, etc. were determined in a separate document, the curriculum for Islam has been revised so that it is now for the first time included in the new national curriculum.
The change means that Islam as a school subject is now treated with the same degree of attention as all the other subjects are. As for each religious subject the curriculum is categorized into three different content areas; "Relationship to one’s own religion”, "Religious diversity in the world” and lastly "Good life principles”, the contents of Islam are hence comparable also with other religious subjects such as Catholicism and Judaism, ensuring equal literacy in their respective religions for students of these subjects.
The new curriculum aims at empowering the pupils of today to be able to deal with issues concerning the Finnish society in the early 21st century.
The content areas outlined for the subject of Islam throughout the class levels 1-9 include for example reflections on religion as part of one’s cultural identity, the historical influence of Islam in the European culture, political Islam, inter-religious dialogue and religion in media and popular culture.
Source: euro-islam
