Teaching Religious studies still compulsory
May 26, 2008
<b>Fr. Fred Mwesigwa</b><br><br>According to the New Vision of May 15, religious studies will be retained on the school curriculum but will not be compulsory. I wish to raise some issues on the place of religion in schools as prescribed in the revised Education Bill 2007. How did the teaching of r

Fr. Fred Mwesigwa
According to the New Vision of May 15, religious studies will be retained on the school curriculum but will not be compulsory. I wish to raise some issues on the place of religion in schools as prescribed in the revised Education Bill 2007. How did the teaching of religious studies, as opposed to any other subject, surface for debate? In 2006, the Cabinet instructed the National Curriculum Development Centre and related Ministry of Education agencies to come up with an effective curriculum to cater for a shift from a 41 subject curriculum to 22 for secondary schools.
It is disappointing that Christian and Islamic religious education were the only subjects debated for removal by MPs yet they were unanimously recommended as core subjects in a September 2006 national survey by the National Curriculum Development Centre.
It is also surprising that MPs seem not to be aware that religious studies is a wrong nomenclature for the subject being taught in primary and secondary schools. Will this wrong naming of the subject not raise legal problems when students expect to be taught religious studies but are taught Christian and Islamic religious education?
In some ‘highly-secularised’ countries like England, the teaching of religious studies was introduced following the 1944 Education Act, later entrenched on the subject list by the 1988 Education Reform Act, is a statutory requirement for all maintained (government-aided schools)? In addition, Chapter 40 part 6 of the Act requires government-aided schools to expose students to an act of collective worship daily. If England, which many of us love to refer to as ‘highly-secularised and irreligious’, gives prominence to religion on the curriculum, how much more would we expect from Uganda, ‘a world acclaimed’ religious country?
Since more than three-quarters of our schools in are religiously founded, they will continue to offer religion on the curriculum despite its being rendered optional. The decision not to make the teaching of religious studies compulsory, therefore, is insignificant and impractical.
The writer is a member of International Seminar on Religious Education and Values
According to the New Vision of May 15, religious studies will be retained on the school curriculum but will not be compulsory. I wish to raise some issues on the place of religion in schools as prescribed in the revised Education Bill 2007. How did the teaching of religious studies, as opposed to any other subject, surface for debate? In 2006, the Cabinet instructed the National Curriculum Development Centre and related Ministry of Education agencies to come up with an effective curriculum to cater for a shift from a 41 subject curriculum to 22 for secondary schools.
It is disappointing that Christian and Islamic religious education were the only subjects debated for removal by MPs yet they were unanimously recommended as core subjects in a September 2006 national survey by the National Curriculum Development Centre.
It is also surprising that MPs seem not to be aware that religious studies is a wrong nomenclature for the subject being taught in primary and secondary schools. Will this wrong naming of the subject not raise legal problems when students expect to be taught religious studies but are taught Christian and Islamic religious education?
In some ‘highly-secularised’ countries like England, the teaching of religious studies was introduced following the 1944 Education Act, later entrenched on the subject list by the 1988 Education Reform Act, is a statutory requirement for all maintained (government-aided schools)? In addition, Chapter 40 part 6 of the Act requires government-aided schools to expose students to an act of collective worship daily. If England, which many of us love to refer to as ‘highly-secularised and irreligious’, gives prominence to religion on the curriculum, how much more would we expect from Uganda, ‘a world acclaimed’ religious country?
Since more than three-quarters of our schools in are religiously founded, they will continue to offer religion on the curriculum despite its being rendered optional. The decision not to make the teaching of religious studies compulsory, therefore, is insignificant and impractical.
The writer is a member of International Seminar on Religious Education and Values