“Christian schools, and more generally faith based schools, have played a leading role in educating children, youth, and even adults for centuries or even millennia in some countries. Today, the primary responsibility for providing education rests with the state, but this does not mean that faith based schools have no role to pla y. Faith based schools continue to play a key role in fulfilling the right to education and achieving the fourth Sustainable Development Goal. In particular, Christian schools and institutions of higher learning serve close to 100 million students globally and provide an important service to their communities and societies. Importantly, Christian and faith based schools also enable parents to choose (within some reasonable limits) the type of education that should be provided to their children.”
With this statement GPENreformation and OIEC introduce the jointly developed position paper “CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AND THE FUTURES OF EDUCATION”. From July to November 2020 scientists, experts and representatives of Catholic and Protestant education worldwide worked in an “Ecumenical Think Tank” under the leadership of GPENreformation council member Prof. Dr. Annette Scheunpflug on a joint statement on the importance of Christian non-state schools. This was submitted as a contribution to the UNESCO Commission for the Future of Education.
Beyond that, GPENreformation and OIEC want to work together for Christian schools in the future. First project ideas are already available – we will keep you up to date!
