|
|
Uganda: Religion Must Remain On School Curriculum
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
3 May 2008
Posted to the web 5 May 2008
Alex Ojacor
Kampala
THE Government has proposed to remove religious studies from the school curriculum for what they say are "strategic and ideological" reasons (The New Vision, Monday, April 28, 2008). Although we are entirely relying on the short article to react to this proposal, it is sufficient ground to deal with it from the outset.
To even think of removing the teaching of religious education in schools in a country whose motto is "For God and my country" and where every national celebration begins with prayer is ridiculous enough.
What has religious education done to deserve being shut out of schools? What is wrong with teaching our children that there is a Supreme Being who is the source of all that is, who deserves worship and love and that the same Being demands of us to love others as we love ourselves? What is wrong with teaching children the virtues of respect, obedience, service, moral uprightness, kindness, justice, etc based on more binding and enduring timeless religious principles?
You may be amazed that the very people touting this move are products of these same systems that they are now turning to destroy. They will do everything possible, not excluding inducements, to get their children into the schools that base themselves on religious principles.
How many of the so-called famous schools are purely agnostic, purely secular or non-religiously aligned?
It is important to remind our legislators that education is a product of religion. Formal schools were first around the monasteries which were centres of theological studies and science - disciplines which developed together in the history of humanity.
The first schools in Uganda were built by the missionaries: Gayaza High School and King's College Budo were the first to be established by the Protestants; St. Mary's College Kisubi by Catholic White Fathers; and Namilyango College by the Mill Hill Mission from London. The colonial government did not participate in the establishment of formal education until 1925, when they started giving grants and facilitating the already established schools. They did not enter the education sector formally, but through the backdoor.
If I kill my animal, then you take charge of the skinning before presiding over the distribution of the meat without due consideration for me the hunter, I get really apprehensive. This country will know well that there is a significant relationship between the "good-performing schools" and religion. Good performance of children is not independent of discipline which is best instilled through religious values and practices.
The Bible advises that we should not conform to this age but be transformed by the renewal of our minds, that we may know what the will of God is, what is good and perfect (Romans 12:2). This succumbing to undue pressure from the West which has squeezed out the sacred from its schools is dangerous because they are currently reaping of a savage generation that is drug-prone, immoral, kills each other at school, commits suicide, etc.
Our only proven high way to ethical and moral life of people has been through religion and not any political system or culture. Religion is functional in society. Human needs are more basic than the type of problems that science and technology purports to solve.
We need ethical guidance for life which the increasingly acute scientific descriptions do not contain. No mature person with experience of life can seriously suppose that the issues of love and death, or justice and charity, could possibly be resolved by consulting the Handbook of Physics or some later edition of the Encyclopaedia of Technology. On such matters, our pathological preoccupation with so-called science has clearly little to say. For God and My Country.
|
The writer is a lecturer at Ggaba National Seminary
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
