At Bavaria’s schools, more and more pupils are opting for the compulsory elective subject Islamic Instruction. Between the 2018/19 school year (16,265) and the now expired 2022/23 year, the number of schoolchildren rose by a good 19 percent to 19,414, the Ministry of Education in Munich announced. In the same period under consideration, the number of schools in which lessons can be chosen increased by a good ten percent from 351 to 387 and the number of teachers by almost 25 percent from 110 to 137.
“The increasing numbers show that the current concept of Islamic education is very popular with parents and students,” said Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (Freie Wahler). Islamic instruction has been off to a good start as a regular compulsory elective for the past two school years. “I’m very happy about that. We offer our Muslim students a great educational opportunity as an alternative to ethics classes.”
In 2021, the Bavarian state parliament approved the conversion of the previous state-wide pilot project into a regular compulsory elective subject, Islamic instruction. It was initially available at around 370 schools for pupils, particularly those of Muslim faith – instead of religious studies and alongside ethics. It is explicitly a state offer in which state teachers are supposed to impart knowledge about the Islamic religion and a basic value orientation “in the spirit of the value system of the Basic Law and the Bavarian Constitution” in German.
Just one day after the state parliament decision, critics had filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court. The educator Ernst-Günther Krause, the Bavarian Association for Freedom of Thought and the Munich regional group in the support group of the Giordano Bruno Foundation complained in vain that the constitutionally required prerequisites for the introduction of the school subject were missing. In order to further advance the expansion of Islamic instruction, the teachers who were still employed on a temporary basis during the pilot project have already been given permanent contracts. In addition, other teachers are offered a qualification so that they can also teach the subject. In addition, Islamic instruction is also approved as an examination subject for the qualifying certificate of middle school.