With all due re­spect to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh, there seems to be an agen­da to con­vert our pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, de­signed for aca­d­e­m­ic de­vel­op­ment of our chil­dren and cit­i­zens, in­to church­es, mandirs or mosques. Can schools take the place of re­li­gious train­ing in­sti­tu­tions, and should school teach­ers take the place of re­li­gious ex­perts? Has the min­is­ter con­sid­ered the mam­moth and con­fus­ing task, cou­pled with the im­prac­ti­ca­bil­i­ty in­volved in such an un­der­tak­ing? More­over, he seems to be as­sum­ing the "strange" role of high priest, imam, pun­dit or arch­bish­op to man­date that his sub­or­di­nates teach all re­li­gions to their chil­dren.

Where are we head­ing as a na­tion with this ap­proach? Aren't we en­joy­ing re­li­gious har­mo­ny al­ready in this coun­try? Why plunge the na­tion in­to re­li­gious war? In his ad­dress to the Hin­du Stu­dents' Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the min­is­ter re­ferred to "a re­vised cur­ricu­lum in re­li­gious ed­u­ca­tion that mir­rors the virtues and val­ues of all the re­li­gious groups in our coun­try." Whose brain­child is this? Is there a hid­den re­li­gious agen­da here? This is es­sen­tial­ly syn­cretism (the com­bin­ing of dif­fer­ent re­li­gions, cul­tures and ways of think­ing); so that this whole ef­fort seems noth­ing more than the im­po­si­tion of "an­oth­er re­li­gion" on the na­tion, start­ing with our vul­ner­a­ble and un­sus­pect­ing chil­dren.

The won­der­ful "plu­ral­ism" of T&T im­plied in the min­is­ter's speech is like­ly to be se­ri­ous­ly erod­ed as the class­room turns in­to a re­li­gious war zone through the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the pro­posed cur­ricu­lum. That which is beau­ti­ful now at the cul­tur­al, so­cial and aca­d­e­m­ic lev­els could quick­ly turn in­to out­right re­li­gious war in the class­room. The min­is­ter should be aware that re­li­gious sen­si­tiv­i­ties be­come more acute when one is forced to teach or lis­ten to that which one does not be­lieve in or find in­sult­ing to one's con­vic­tion. Worse, when a gov­ern­ment of the day pro­vides an of­fi­cial plat­form for com­par­isons and con­trasts of the na­tion's re­li­gions, what can be more di­vi­sive? Every­body knows how deep re­li­gious sen­ti­ments run among any peo­ple, whether mul­ti­cul­tur­al, mul­tire­li­gious or not.

What is the on­to­log­i­cal ba­sis of the so-called "moral val­ues held by our di­verse faiths" re­ferred to by Prof John Spence? How else can these moral val­ues be sound ex­cept root­ed in ob­jec­tive truth, that which is es­tab­lished by one Cre­ator, God? Are they mere­ly ide­olo­gies com­ing out of hu­man­is­tic con­sid­er­a­tions or is there a stan­dard­ised moral code from which they are drawn? Which set of moral val­ues should teach­ers per­suade our chil­dren to em­brace? Which ones are right and which ones are wrong? Prof Spence (one of my for­mer UWI lec­tur­ers) is cer­tain­ly not an ex­pert in re­li­gion; I am sur­prised he is ad­vo­cat­ing this, if on­ly part­ly on the ba­sis of the in­for­ma­tion from a UK "teacher on that sub­ject." I would have ex­pect­ed much more in-depth and in­sight­ful judg­ment on his part.

The good­ly pro­fes­sor should note that a "mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety" (which by the way T&T is at present) is not the same as a re­li­gious­ly syn­cret­ic so­ci­ety, more like the agen­da be­ing pushed by the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion. This is where se­ri­ous prob­lems are like­ly to de­vel­op-where a kind of re­li­gious melt­ing pot is im­posed on the cit­i­zen­ry. Some se­ri­ous ques­tions have to be asked. How many re­li­gions would be cov­ered in this "re­vised cur­ricu­lum?" What about de­nom­i­na­tion­al branch­es? In Chris­tian­i­ty there are the Ro­man Catholics, the Epis­co­palians (An­gli­cans), Mora­vians, Spir­i­tu­al or Shouter Bap­tists, Pen­te­costals, Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tists, Pres­by­te­ri­ans and oth­ers. What about branch­es of Hin­duism or Is­lam?

This com­par­a­tive re­li­gion busi­ness is cer­tain­ly not a mat­ter for pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools. This should be left to re­li­gious bod­ies. It will on­ly cre­ate an ex­tra bur­den on our stu­dents and un­war­rant­ed­ly ham­per their over­all de­vel­op­ment.

By the way, did the min­is­ter ban ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties in schools to ac­com­mo­date this "re­li­gious" agen­da? The type of re­li­gious ed­u­ca­tion pro­posed, fraught with such dan­gers, could nev­er be more ben­e­fi­cial to our chil­dren's ed­u­ca­tion than ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties. The is­sue is not one of "ig­no­rance" as Dr Spence im­plies, it is about peo­ple's deep-seat­ed re­li­gious con­vic­tions that can­not be dic­tat­ed and man­dat­ed against. Then where is the in­tegri­ty of our na­tion­al an­them: "Here every creed and race find an equal place?" Here is where the Prime Min­is­ter needs to over­rule. Who is qual­i­fied to teach what? Would a Chris­t­ian teacher teach on Hin­duism? What would be the con­tent of that teach­ing? What would be the source of in­for­ma­tion-the Gi­ta or the Bible? Would teach­ers be guilty of of­fend­ing stu­dents and their par­ents? What about bi­as­ness, dis­re­spect and per­ceived or de­lib­er­ate in­sults that could be hurled at oth­er peo­ple's re­li­gions?

Would this com­par­a­tive study ad­dress ques­tions of pre­sup­po­si­tion­al­ism, pri­ma fa­cie and ul­ti­ma fa­cie war­rants for par­tic­u­lar be­liefs, co­her­ence of a be­lief, con­sis­ten­cy and live­abil­i­ty of world- views, or their cred­i­ble­ness? What about the work­a­bil­i­ty of a be­lief or its un­re­al­is­tic na­ture? What about meta­physics and the ques­tion of on­tol­ogy, causal­i­ty, the phi­los­o­phy of time, space or space time as con­cep­tu­alised by dif­fer­ent re­li­gions? Will teach­ers teach on the "na­ture of ev­i­dence" and the "crit­i­cal ex­per­i­ment" of a re­li­gious view that ei­ther ver­i­fies or fal­si­fies a hy­poth­e­sis or the­o­ry? What a huge, con­fused and im­prac­ti­cal cur­ricu­lum this is like­ly to be, if it has to make sense or jus­ti­fy the pa­per and the time utilised for do­ing same. Fi­nal­ly, are we pre­pared for the so­cial dis­or­der that will re­sult from the feel­ings of hurts and in­sults com­ing out of this seem­ing­ly mean­ing­ful in­no­va­tion?

Apos­tle J Ver­non Dun­can is the se­nior pas­tor of Di­vine En­counter Fel­low­ship Min­istries In­ter­na­tion­al and na­tion­al co-or­di­na­tor of the Na­tion­al Net­work of In­ter­ces­sors

J Ver­non Dun­can

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