Board of Education (R.O.I.)20 Nov 23

A global perspective on Protestant education

“Your history is not only your history but it’s embedded in a global perspective as well,” Professor Annette Scheunpflug remarked as she gave the keynote address at Dublin City University’s recent seminar on the history of Protestant comprehensive schools.  Professor Scheunpflug, who researches and teaches educational science at the University of Bamberg, in northern Bavaria, was speaking at the event hosted by the Church of Ireland Centre at DCU and the Educational Studies Association of Ireland.

The number of Protestant faith–based schools in particular parts of the world, she outlined, depends firstly on the history of individual countries.  In the Netherlands, for example, more than 70% of schools are faith–based with the Protestant sector being the largest, even in what is today a very secular country.  In the former East Germany, Protestant education has become very popular since it re–opened after the Cold War as many parents, while not having a faith at all, didn’t want their children to be brought up in the (former Communist) state education system.

Where governments are unable to provide education, faith–based education is seen as a “huge alternative” as seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has 22,500 Protestant schools.  The status of religion in a region is another important factor.  For example in Rwanda, an emerging democracy, Protestant schools are seen as “spaces for finding little alternative solutions in the public sphere” and provide more space for democratic expression compared to state–run schools.  The growth in Protestant schools in Africa opens up the potential for deeper learning and shared history, including different stories about the experience of colonisation.

In Germany, 70 per cent of Protestant schools specifically serve non–privileged students from disadvantaged backgrounds, or who are living with disabilities, or who are taking part in vocational training.  One beautiful example in the foothills of the Alps educates 50% of the country’s Winter Olympic medallists and is also a school for children with breathing difficulties who need to participate in mountain sports to improve their health: “Isn’t this a great form of integration and social justice?”

Data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicate that Protestant schools have a high reading capacity – an encouraging finding as “being Protestant means to be able to read the Bible by yourself and by this to get your own understanding.”

After the genocide in Rwanda, education for democracy is “at the heart of Protestant schools” and they have a statistically significant higher performance in this area of learning compared to other schools: “It is, of course, something that is in the core of being Protestant as well – to allow you to be part of a deciding community and to be responsible for what you’re doing.”

In 2017, as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation was marked, the international Protestant schools network GPEN produced a position paper on what unites schools with this history.  A theological ‘root’ emphasised Creation, unconditional love, God–given freedom, trust in the Holy Spirit, and global solidarity, hope, peace and justice in God’s kingdom.  This, in turn, led to a pedagogy where every student learns to develop their own potential and be joyful and is offered ‘error–friendly forgiveness’ – an approach which places an importance on being committed to freedom and responsibility, high quality teaching, and striving for social justice.

Professor Scheunpflug suggested that more empirical and historical research into the role of Protestant schools, and their connection with each other, was needed along with a recognition of these schools in ongoing large–scale educational assessments.  Those involved in schools also had to lobby together “because we are now in a secularising world”.  This work has been taken forward by the Association for Protestant Schools and Educational Institutions, based in the Netherlands, in co–operation with the International Office of Catholic Education (OIEC).  There is also a role in connecting schools and enhancing global learning together.

Reflecting on this bigger picture, she noted: “Even if every denomination is different in the Protestant world, even if every nation has its own history, there is something that connects us.”