Foreword

At the University of Debrecen there have been researches about the role of churches in education since the second half of the '90s. During the first in-depth research in Hungary and then in the Carpathian basin it became evident that the question was worth elaboration in the countries of political transformation. Important antecedents were EU publications issued in the '90s that undertook the task to overview and compare parts of the national education systems that were run by non-governmental actors. These publications dealt with the present situation of these non-public schools in European education systems and beside the most important statistical data they also gave a comparative analysis of the legal measures concerning the legal frameworks, types of schools, conditions of school foundation, state support from public funds, relationships with state curricula, recognition of school leaving certificates and status of teachers (Eurydice 1993, Saha 1997, Eurydice 1999). They dealt, however, only with the then EU Member States and because of the special methodology, they were not really sensitive to the cultural traditions of the individual countries. Obviously they did not advert to the topic either, how religious education appears in the public education system or how public schools relate to the religious freedom of students belonging to various denominations. During a comparative analysis certain historic characteristics, e.g. religious, denominational composition of a given country, the circumstances of the evolvement of the modern state and state administration can help analyse not only the extent (Archer 1979) and support of the school system run by churches and other non-state actors but the present characteristics of religious education in state schools (eligibility, fit in the timetable, conditions of joining and dropping a course) as well (Tomka 1992).

There are a number of sharply contrasting views on the respective roles of the Church and the State in education in. According to one paradigm the Church and the State have been rivals since the very beginning, and the past two centuries have been all about the struggle between the old and the new dominating groups (Archer 1979), whereas according to another view certain social interest groups, leaning on the bureaucratic state for support, have got rid of the Churches in the first step in order to achieve civil rights (Polanyi 1944), and later they have gradually limited the role of the state as well (Molnar 1990).

The two views agree that the social role of the Churches has diminished significantly during the last century. One of the views regards the present time as the era when the power of the state is at its peak, as the final step in the two hundred-year process of 'nationalisation'. According to the other view public thinking has become pluralist, religion has become a private matter and the Churches have changed into voluntary social organizations. The state, having lost its role as a proprietor and a moral authority, functions only as a coordinator, a 'book-keeper' serving public security (Molnár 1993).

The essence of the Archerian theory, which is based on a historical statistical analysis, is the competition between different social interest groups - between the dominating ones and their challengers - for the control over the educational system. One of his two models is the Russian and French one based on a restrictive strategy; the other one is the English and Danish one exemplifying the substitutive strategy (Archer 1979). Regarding the position of denominational schools in Western European countries, the abovementioned EU publications reflect a flattening of fault-lines between the earlier historic models (Pusztai 2004). In this new casting, the state - instead of being a competitive player - appears everywhere as a coordinator. Its new role is defined by the constitutional principle of respecting human rights, namely the right to religious freedom and the right to education. These publications clearly show that at the millennium EU states understood providing and financing free and compulsory education as public tasks. In European countries the freedom of education means, on the one hand, free founding, organizing and choosing a school by citizens and the existence of private schools, and on the other hand the growing number of private schools with state support (Eurydice 2000: 100). It was a clear basic principle, too, that while creating the frames for compulsory education modern European constitutional states regard pluralism and the freedom of belief as constitutional principles, and did not attempt to have power over the ethos and organization of education. They try, however, to provide for the fulfilment of curricular requirements set by law and they consider ensuring the right of citizens to education as their responsibility. As a consequence, the situation of non-state schools and the extent of state support from public funds are not defined by the ideology conveyed by the school or the identity of the maintainer but their relationship to the state curricula. In the education system, real clear- cut confines are not to be found between the public and private sectors but between supported schools fulfilling substantial requirements and those very different and as such self-financing schools. The dominant EU conception emphasizes both providing for the parents' right to choose non- state institutions and guaranteeing the right to establish private schools.

In the EU Member States private schools were mainly run by nonprofit organizations at the millennium. Those are not interested in profit making and thus the adjective 'private' only refers to the fact that they are not owned by the state. In the European education systems the nongovernmental sector is strongly proportioned according to its legal status. They can have two to four poles with the highest differentiation in the Italian system. In the various European states the private sector in the strict sense - the institutions of which are organized, financed and controlled exclusively by private persons or bodies - is small. Parallelly, however, another sector was taking shape that is neither public nor fully private as considering both their financial sources and controlling they are closely related to the government - denominational education institutions can generally be classified into this group.

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