Why the merger of religious education in our schools would fail

Recently, the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, His Grace, Most Rev. Dr. Alfred Adewale Martins, at a public event, alerted the nation of the move by the nation’s ministry of education to merge the study of Christian Religious Knowledge with Islamic education across schools in the country. Information reaching us has it that under the new arrangement, which was developed by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Christian and Islamic Religious Studies, which are separately taught, will now be merged under a compulsory subject known as Religion and National Values (RNV). 

Archbishop Martins noted rightly that such a move, if implemented, would further aggravate religious disharmony in our country. It would, according to him, also wreak more havoc on our family unit, which has been under severe attacks from negative influences across the globe.  Here is an excerpt of His Grace’s recent comment on the issue: “I believe that one of the things that could seriously jeopardise Christian family in our days and in our nation is the curriculum that the Federal Ministry of Education has introduced to replace Social Studies with a subject titled ‘’Religion and National Values,’’ which is a mish-mash of Christian and Islamic Religious Education in one and the same subject.

It would mean that in one breath, teachers would be teaching children that Jesus is God, Who became man, died for the sins of all mankind and rose from the dead on the third day; and in another breath, He is only a prophet, Who just died and remained dead; you would be teaching that children should disobey their parents in some circumstance that is specified in part of the curriculum.

Teachers who are Christians would be required to teach Christian Religious Education in the same way, as those who are not Muslims would be required to teach Islamic Religious Education. This is a matter that calls for urgent attention, even in a more serious way than the economy, given the kind of confusion we could end up inflicting on our children and the insensitivity of religion in a nation such as ours.”

The above is self-explanatory. We all know the sensitive nature of religion in our country. No matter how laudable government’s intention may be for coming up with the merger plan, it just would not work. There are too many disparities in the teachings of the two religions, which, rather than unite, would further aggravate tension in the land. As has been rightly pointed out by some stakeholders, a major source of the conflicts between adherents of the two religions around is that they do not have a unified viewpoint on the places of these two. Secondly, the Bible and the Qur’an are not on the same page on major issues about man in this world and hereafter.

Even then, rights Act of 2003 preserves the right of the child not to be exposed to any religion contrary to that of his parents or guardians. We must not toy with their young minds, as they grow and attempt to understand the complexities of human life. I hope those in authority would do the needful by putting a halt to this move.
• Very Rev. Msgr. Osu, Director, Social Communications, Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos.