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Uganda: You Just Can't Ban Religious Education
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The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
8 May 2008
Posted to the web 8 May 2008
Rev. Sheldon Mwesigwa
I wish to observe that Mr Mayanja Nkangi is on cue to root for Religious Education (not studies as reported by the press) as a medium of promoting religious moral values that are essential in addressing the ethical value system of Ugandan students.
It is ironical that the same newspaper (New Vision, April 29, 2008) which revealed the cabinet decision to ban the teaching of religion in schools is the same that carried a commentary by Mr Nsaba Buturo, Minister of Ethics and Integrity, in which he laboured to explain the looming problem of moral degeneration at the behest of secularism thus calling for a God inclined people.
Mr Buturo wrote 'sadly, the secular camp, with their situational ethics and secular emphasis, is making substantial in-roads against Uganda's traditional religiously inspired cultural values.' Could this partly explain the resurgence of the issue of banning Religious Education in schools?
The first attempt to ban the teaching of Christian Religious Education (CRE) and Islamic Religious Education (IRE) was through a fraudulent introduction of Moral Education in the 1992 Government White Paper on Education.
The Education Policy Review Commission, as part of my 2003 doctoral thesis findings, did not carry consultations with the stakeholders when they mooted the idea of Moral Education.
It is not surprising that when the public learnt of the clandestine arrangements evidenced by the then introduction of Moral Education on the curriculum of Primary Teachers Colleges under a special programme (SUPER), they protested vociferously and this resulted in the rescinding of the decision in the run up to the 2001 presidential elections.
As per New Vision, January 15, 2001 and The Monitor January 16, 2001 President Museveni pledged to keep religion on Uganda's curriculum. As sure as night follows day, the then much awaited Volume Two of primary school curriculum that included CRE and IRE was released on February 5, 2001.
The recent revelation that cabinet finds the teaching of CRE and IRE ideologically and strategically faulty begs one key question, 'What research or study has been carried out?' The last time I carried out a three-year extensive research in 2003 on the subject, all key stakeholders, including academicians in higher institutions of learning, supported the teaching of CRE and IRE in schools.
Secondly, in a recent study by officials of National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC), Ministry of Education and Education Standards Agency (ESA) dated September 2006 page 28 and read to participants at a stakeholders' workshop at Jokas Hotel in Bweyogerere, it reported that CRE and IRE were recommended by the surveyed population to be on the core subject list alongside other skills based and academic subjects.
Whilst it is true that the current CRE and IRE syllabuses need review in order to address some of the concerns of government like the need to address the multi-religious nature of Uganda's religiously sensitive society and to dispel the view that CRE and IRE are essentially concerned with morality (Wanyama, New Vision, May 5, 2008). What is required is reviewing the Religious Education curriculum, not banning it.
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Recourse to research findings and not pronouncements is the way to go. The disjuncture between government pronouncements and research findings needs to be addressed. Schumacher (1984) argues that in a nation of cultural pluralism, determining what is right may be difficult and it calls for research.
In a progressive society, educational research should be the engine of change in educational theory, policy and practice.
The writer is a researcher on Religious Education and a lecturer of Religious Studies at Uganda Christian University.
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