GED letter to schools
Link to: Policy: Religion In Education
14 March 2003
Dear Mr zzzzzzzz
By direction of the Minister of Education, Professor Kader Asmal, I am forwarding to you a draft of the "Religion in Education" policy for your perusal and comment.
The Minister hereby signals his intention to finalise the policy shortly and the current process will be the final step in the consultation process.
You are no doubt aware that during the past decade, the role of religion in education has been the subject of considerable research, wide-ranging consultations, and public debate. The Minister met with religious leaders and other groupings several times and also engaged persons in the Presidential Forum of Religious Leaders. During these interactions support for the approach to Religion Education outlined in the policy document was expressed.
It would be appreciated if you could forward your comments by 7 April 2003. The drafting team will go through all the comments received and provide the Minister with a summary of their suggestions. The minister will apply his mind to the comments and the summary and finalise the policy.
Please post your comments to:
Edcent Williams
Chief Director: Curriculum and Assessment Development and Learner Achievement
Private Bag X895
Pretoria
0001
You could choose to fax them to: 012 323 5855.
Thanking you in anticipation
Edcent Williams
Chief Director: Curriculum and Assessment Development and Learner
Policy: Religion In Education
Religion, Education, and Democracy
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 Values
6 Learning about Religion and Religions
7 Teaching about Religion and Religions
Religion, Education and Democracy
In this document we set out policy for religion in education that will serve the best interests of our democratic society. Recognising the value of the rich, diverse religious heritage of our country, we identify the distinctive contribution that our schools can make in teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity in South Africa and the world. We introduce a new policy of Religion Education for religion literacy.
When we provide our learners with educationally sound programmes in Religion Education, they will gain a deeper and broader understanding of the life orientations, worldviews, cultural practices, and ethical resources of humanity. As they develop creative and critical abilities for thinking about religion and religions, learners will also develop the capacities for mutual recognition, respect for diversity, reduced prejudice, and increased civil toleration that are necessary for citizens to live together in a democratic society. Learning about themselves while learning about others, students will discover our common humanity in diversity.
The policy for religion in education that is outlined here is the final result of nearly ten years of research and consultation that extends from the National Education Policy Investigation of the early 1990s to the report of the Ministerial Committee on Religious Education in 1999. Building on the progress made over the past decade, this policy also links religion in education with new initiatives in cultural rebirth, moral regeneration, and the promotion of values in our schools. In preserving our heritage, respecting our diversity, and building a future based on solid values, Religion Education can play a significant role. To achieve those educational goals, we submit that the way forward for religion in education must be guided by the following principles:
o Policy for the role of religion in public schools in South Africa must flow directly from core constitutional values of citizenship, human rights, equality, freedom from discrimination, and freedom for conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion.
o The public school has and educational responsibility for teaching and learning about religion and religions in ways that are different than the religious education, religious instruction, or religious nurture provided by the home, family, and religious community.
o Religion Education is an academic programme, with clear educational aims and objectives, for teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity in South Africa and the world.
o Learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity is embodied in a learning outcome and related assessment standards of the Life Orientation Learning Area Statement of the National Curriculum statement for Schools (Grades R - 9).
o Teaching about religion, religions, and religious diversity needs to be facilitated by trained professional educators.
o Programmes in Religion Education must be developed with the necessary coherence and flexibility, depth and scope, and supported by appropriate teaching materials and assessment criteria.
o Religion Education can contribute to creating an integrated school community that affirms unity in diversity.
South Africa is a multi-religious country. Although over 60 per cent of our people claim allegiance to Christianity, South Africa is home to a variety of religious traditions - indigenous African, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and others - that have established strong, vibrant and vital constituencies. With a deep and enduring African religious heritage, South Africa is a country that embraces all the major 'world religions.' Each of these religions, including Christianity, is a diverse category, encompassing many different understandings of religious life. At the same time, many South Africans draw their understanding of the world, ethical principles, and human values from sources independent of religious institutions. In the most profound matters of life orientation, therefore, diversity is a fact of our national life.
Our diversity of language, culture, and religion cannot, and need not, be wished away. Rather, we celebrate diversity as a national resource. It is after all not uniformity that we are seeking but unity, as our new Coat of Arms urges, 'Diverse people unite.' As we increasingly dismantle the legacy of apartheid, we need to find new ways of transforming the vicious divisions of the past into the vital diversity of a free, open, and democratic society. Policy for the role of religion in education must be driven by the dual mandate of respecting religious diversity and building national unity.
During the past decade, the role of religion in education has been the subject of considerable research, wide-ranging consultations, and public debate. The issue was addressed in the work of the National Education Policy Investigation, the Independent Forum for Religious Education, the National Education and Training Forum, Curriculum 2005, the National Curriculum statement and in many other arenas. During 1999, a Ministerial Committee on Religious Education submitted a report, Religion in Curriculum 2005, for response and discussion. Reviewing the progress made in all of this work, we see an emerging consensus about the way forward for teaching and learning about religion in our schools.
In charting the way forward, we find that confessional or sectarian forms of religious education in public schools are inappropriate for a religiously diverse and democratic society. As public institutions with a social contract to serve the entire society, public schools must move away from adopting a particular religion - or a limited set of religions - for the purposes of a religious education that advances religious interests. Rather, schools should be explaining what religions are about, with clear educational goals and objectives, in ways that increase understanding, respect diversity, and clarify the religious and non-religious sources of moral values. We owe this to our learners, but also to parents, citizens, and taxpayers. We have the responsibility and opportunity to develop a new Religion Education.
As defined in this policy, Religion Education is teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity. By way of introduction, we highlight three basic features of Religion Education.
First, Religion Education is educational. Knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the full extent of our rich and textured religious diversity should be reflected in the learning programmes of our schools. Until now, religion in our education system has largely served the promotion of confessional or sectarian religious interests. This religious approach to religious education was undergirded by the false conviction that the problems of our society stem from a loss of religious belief that could only be corrected if one particular truth was accepted as normative. By contrast, others rejected any place for religion in education by arguing that the mutual acceptance of our common humanity was the only solution for societal harmony. Over and against the blueprints that both these views present, we will do much better if our learners are exposed to a variety of belief systems in a well-formed matter that gives rise to a genuine respect for adherents of these various belief systems that is based on solid understanding.
Second, Religion Education is education about diversity for a diverse society. As apartheid barriers dissolve, the classroom will increasingly become a space of linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity. Schools must create an overall environment - a social, intellectual, emotional, behavioural, organisational, and structural environment - that engenders a sense of acceptance, security, and respect for learners with differing values, cultural backgrounds, and religious traditions. Schools should also show an awareness and acceptance of the fact that values do not necessarily stem from religion. By teaching about religious and other values in an open educational environment, schools must ensure that all learners, irrespective of race, creed, sexual orientation, disability, language, gender, or class, feel welcome, emotionally secure, and appreciated.
Third, Religion Education is education not only about valuing traditions but also about traditions of values. Religions are important, although not exclusive, sources of moral values. We are all concerned about the general decline in moral standards in our country. The high rates of crime, and the apparent lack of respect for human life, are worrying factors in this regard. We find ourselves in need of moral regeneration. For this to happen, the commitment of all people of good will is required. As cultural systems for the transmission of values, religions are resources for clarifying morals, ethics, and regard for others. Religions embody values of justice and mercy, love and care, commitment, compassion, and co-operation. They chart profound ways of being human in relation to other humans. Obviously, moral values are not the monopoly of religions, much less the exclusive property of one religion as we were led to believe by the religious education of the past. However, when Religion Education is given its rightful place in our education system, the important process of imparting moral values can be intensified through reaching and learning about religious and other value systems.
In the light of these considerations, we introduce a new policy for religion in education that does not promote religious interests but actively advances the educational goals of understanding religion and religions, respecting diversity, and providing access to sources of moral values.
Our policy for the role of religion in public schools flows directly from core constitutional values of citizenship, human rights, equality, freedom from discrimination, and freedom for conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion. By enshrining these basic values, the Constitution provides the framework for determining the role of religion in a democratic society.
Our Constitution has worked out a careful balance between freedom for religious belief and expression and freedom from religious coercion and discrimination. On the one hand, by ensuring that 'Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, - and opinion' (15[1]), the Constitution has guaranteed freedom for religion. Citizens are free to exercise their basic right to religious conviction, expression, and association. On the other hand, by ensuring equality in the enjoyment of all the rights, privileges, and benefits of citizenship, the Constitution explicitly prohibits the state from unfair discrimination on grounds that include religion, belief, and conscience (9[3]). Protected from any discriminatory practices based on religion, citizens are thereby free from any religious coercion that might be established by the state.
In line with the Constitution, the National Education Policy Act (Act No 27 of 1996) upholds the constitutional rights of all citizens to freedom for conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion and freedom from unfair discrimination on any grounds whatsoever, including on the basis of religion, in public educational institutions. Although the National Education Policy Act allows for the possibility that independent schools might be established on the basis of religion, as long as they do not engage in racial discrimination, public schools cannot be established on a religious basis. Such an establishment of religion in a public school would clearly violate the constitutional protection of citizens against unfair discrimination on the basis of religion, belief, and conscience.
Within this constitutional framework, public schools have a calling to promote core values of a democratic society. As identified in the report of the ministerial committee on values in education, these core values include equity, tolerance, multilingualism, openness, accountability, and social honour. Our policy on religion in education must be consistent with these values.
o Equity: The education process in general must aim at the development of a national democratic culture with respect for the value of all of our people's diverse cultural, religious and linguistic traditions.
o Tolerance: Religion in education must contribute to the advancement of inter-religious toleration and interpersonal respect among adherents of different religious or secular worldviews in a shared civil society.
o Multilingualism: In the interest of advancing informed respect for diversity, educational institutions have a responsibility for promoting multi-religious knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of religions in South Africa and the world.
o Openness: Recognising that schools, together with the broader society, are responsible for cultural formation and transmission, educational institutions must promote a spirit of openness in which there shall be no overt or covert attempt to indoctrinate learners into any particular belief or religion.
o Accountability: As systems of human accountability, religions cultivate moral values and ethical commitments that can be recognised as resources for learning and as vital contributions to nation building.
o Social Honour: While honouring the linguistic, cultural, and religious backgrounds or all learners, educational institutions cannot allow the overt or covert denigration of any religion.
The public school has an educational responsibility for teaching and learning about religion and religions in ways that are different from the religious education, religious instruction, or religious nurture provided by the home, family, and religious community. In keeping with the finding of the National Education and Training Forum (1994), we must affirm that the 'education and formation of an adherent in a specific faith is primarily the responsibility of the family and the religious community.'
In clarifying the role of religion in public schools, we might consider four possible models for structuring the relationship between religion and the state. A theocratic model identifies the state with one particular religion or religious grouping. In some cases, this model has resulted in a situation in which the state and religion become indistinguishable. In a religiously diverse society such as South Africa, this model clearly would be inappropriate.
At the other extreme, a repressionist model is based on the premise that the state should act to suppress religion. In such a model, the state would operate to marginalise or eliminate religion from public life. In a religiously active society such as South Africa, any constitutional model based on state hostility towards religion would be unthinkable. Obviously, we must reject both the theocratic model of the religious state, such as the 'Christian-National' state in our own history that tried to impose religion in public institutions, as well as any repressionist model that would adopt a hostile stance against religion.
A modern secular state, which is neither religious nor anti-religious, in principle adopts a position of neutrality towards religion. A separationist model for the secular state represents an attempt to completely divorce the religious and secular spheres of a society. In this model, each would have its separate sovereignty, but no overlap would be permitted. However, drawing such a strict separation between religion and the secular state may be extremely difficult to implement in practice.
The reality is that there is considerable interchange between religion and public life. Furthermore, a strict separation between the two spheres of religion and state might not even be desirable, since without the commitment and engagement of religious bodies it is difficult to see us solving the problems of health, education, housing, the environment, and other issues of importance to our future as a country.
In a cooperative model for the secular state, both the principle of legal separation and the possibility of creative interaction are affirmed. Separate spheres for religion and the state are established by the Constitution, but there is scope for interaction between the two. While ensuring the protection of citizens from religious discrimination or coercion, this model would also encourage an ongoing dialogue between religious groups and the state in areas of common interest and concern. Even in such exchanges, however, religious individuals and groups must be assured of their freedom from any state interference with freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion.
Turning to the question of religion in public education, we propose that the cooperative model that combines constitutional separation with mutual recognition provides a framework that is best for religion and best for education in a democratic South Africa.
On the one hand, the Constitution specifies that state institutions, including public schools, can make space available for conducting religious observances as long as attendance is free and voluntary and access to that opportunity is provided on an equitable basis to all who apply (15[2]).
This provision is consistent with the constitutional assurance that citizens have the right to enjoy their culture, practise their religion, use their language, and form cultural, religious, and linguistic associations within civil society.
On the other hand, by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religion, the Constitution specifies that state institutions, including public schools, cannot privilege, promote, or advance any particular religious interests.
Since the state is not a religious organisation, theological body, or inter-faith forum, the state cannot abuse its power by attempting to propagate any particular religion or religions. Not in the business of religion, the state must maintain neutrality with respect to religion in all of its public institutions, including its public schools.
Therefore, in this cooperative model for the relationship between religion and the secular state, public schools can permit religious instruction outside of the formal school curriculum, as long as they are voluntary and equitable, but public schools cannot promote religious interests within their programmes of formal education. Public schools are enjoined against any for of religious instruction, indoctrination, propaganda, catechism, conversion, or confession. Although these forms of religious education might be highly valued in the context of the home, family, or religious community, when they are practised in public schools they violate the Constitution by introducing religious discrimination into a public institution that serves a religiously diverse society.
Religion Education is an academic programme, with clear educational aims and objectives, for teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity in South Africa and the world. If it is to be included in public school curricula, the study of religion has to be justified on educational grounds. Religion Education must be justified by the educational character and value of the information conveyed to students.
It must be justified by the transferable skills that students develop, such as disciplined imagination, reading comprehension, writing ability, and critical thinking, and by the desirable social ends, such as expanding understanding, increasing tolerance, and reducing prejudice, that can be served by this field of study within the school curriculum.
Unlike a single-tradition approach to religious education, which provides religious instruction in one religion, and unlike a multiple single-tradition approach, which provides parallel programmes in religious instruction for an approved set of religions, the multi-tradition approach to the study of Religion Education is not intended to encourage any particular religious way of life. In this respect, Religion Education is not engaged in the promotion of religion. It is a programme for studying about religion, in all its many forms, as an important dimension of human experience and a significant subject field in the school curriculum.
In clarifying the role of religion in public education, we seek to realise the benefits of a single, unified, and academically coherent programme in the study of religion. An open, plural, intercultural, and interdisciplinary study of religion in public schools is consistent with international developments in Religion Education. It is also a model gaining increasing popularity and relevance throughout Africa. This approach engages religion in generic terms as an important human activity, like politics, economics, or literature that students should know about if they are to be educated. Some of the benefits of a programme in Religion Education can be briefly noted.
A programme in Religion Education is based on clear educational aims and objectives. In order for the study of religion to be justified within a school curriculum, it must serve, not explicitly religious goals, but recognisable educational goals that are consistent with the aims and objectives of other academic subjects. Like other academic subjects in the curriculum, Religion Education must concentrate on developing basic skills in observation, listening, reading, writing, and thinking.
With respect to the kinds of thinking that can be facilitated, a programme in Religion Education provides an opportunity for students to develop a disciplined imagination that will empower them to recognise a common humanity within religious diversity. Religion Education creates a context in which learners can increase their understanding of themselves and others, deepen their capacity for empathy, and, eventually, develop powers of critical reflection in thinking through problems of religious or moral concern.
Like basic education skills such as reading comprehension or writing ability, these styles of thinking are transferable skills that are potentially relevant to any occupation or role in life. They represent purely educational grounds for developing a programme in Religion Education.
In addition to developing basic and transferable skills, a programme in Religion Education must identify the fundamental structure of knowledge in the subject field. What counts as religion for the educational purposes of Religion Education? In the academic study of religion, the term 'religion' can be defined broadly to refer to beliefs and practices in relation to the transcendent, the sacred, the spiritual, or the ultimate dimensions of human life. Or 'religion' can be defined more narrowly as a generic term that embraces the many religious traditions, communities, or institutions in a given society or the larger world. In either case, if religion, like politics, economics, or literature, is an important human activity that students should learn about, then a programme in Religion Education must identify for students a significant and relevant field of knowledge to be explored.
In the process of defining a field of knowledge, a programme in Religion Education develops ways of knowing that are consistent with constitutional guarantees of human and civil right to freedom of religion, though, and conscience. Religion Education allows for a free exploration of religious diversity in South Africa and the world. In this respect, Religion Education is consistent with the freedom of religion.
At the same time, since it does not promote religious education, indoctrination, the profession of any particular faith, or evangelisation on behalf of any particular religion, a programme in Religion Education ensures that students will be free from religious discrimination. Free to explore the diversity of religion, students within a programme of Religion Education are also free from any form of religious coercion.
As we have established, under the constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion, the state, neither advancing nor inhibiting religion, assumes a position of positive neutrality towards the many communities of faith in South Africa. As an extension of the state, public schools will also assume a position of neutrality.
That positive neutrality is given substance in programmes in Religion Education that involve state schools, not in the propagation of religion, but in teaching about religion as an important aspect of human life in South Africa and the world.
Instead of promoting a religious position, a programme in Religion Education pursues a balanced approach to teaching and learning about religion. Religion Education can provide opportunities for both a deeper sense of self-realisation and a broader civil toleration of others. It can balance the familiar and the foreign in ways that give students new insights into both. It can facilitate the development of both empathetic appreciation and critical analysis. It can teach students about a world of religious diversity, but at the same time it can encourage pupils to think in terms of a new national unity in South Africa. By teaching students about the role of religion in history, society, and the world, a unified, multi-tradition programme in the academic study of religion can be an important part of a well-balanced and complete education.
As a learning programme for both wide integration and academic specialisation, Religion Education shall be developed in both General Education and Training (the GET band) and Further Education and Training (the FET band). Religion Education shall be introduced into various learning areas, especially Life Orientation, in the GET band and organised into distinct learning programme in the FET band.
Religion Education - as Religion Studies - shall be introduced in the FET band for matriculation purposes as an optional, specialised, and examinable subject with a career orientation towards teaching, social work, community development, public service, and related vocations.
6. Learning about Religion and Religions
Learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity serves important educational outcomes identified in Curriculum 2005 and the Revised National Curriculum statement. The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) has announced a vision for education in South Africa in support of 'a prosperous, truly united, democratic, and internationally competitive country free of violence, discrimination, and prejudice.' Not envisioning the technocratic or instrumental management of citizens and society, this statement of educational purpose calls for the empowerment of learners through literacy, creativity, and critical reflection.
In keeping with the spirit of this vision, Religion Education understands literacy to include cultural literacy, ethical literacy, and religion literacy; it understands creativity to include developing capacities for expanding imagination, making connections, and dealing with cultural difference and diversity; and it understands critical faculties to include comparison, cultural analysis, ethical debate, and the formulation and clarification of values.
Religion Education provides programmatic focus for distinctive educational outcomes that have been identified as crucial to South Africa's Curriculum 2005 and the Revised National Curriculum statement produced in 2001. Among the eight learning areas identified, the programme obviously addresses the concerns with beliefs and values, attitudes and worldviews, rights and responsibilities, fostering respect and dealing with diversity, that are addressed in Life Orientation.
As an educational programme, however, Religion Education is committed to educational outcomes that are specified for the Human and Social Sciences. The National Curriculum Statement's Learning Area statement for Life Orientation in concerned to ensure that learners develop the ability to respect the rights of others and to appreciate cultural diversity and different belief systems. In the Foundation Phase, learners can learn about the differences and similarities in symbols, diet, clothing, sacred space and ways of worship of a range of belief systems. In the Intermediate Phase this is taken further through learning about values, festivals, rituals, customs and sacred spaces of different belief systems. In the Senior Phase they learn about how spiritual philosophies are linked to community and social values and practices. Opportunities and possibilities for further development of the principles and practices related to religion education are also found in other learning areas. The curriculum for Further Education and Training will build on the foundation laid in the General Education and Training band. Whether or not learners have achieved the outcome will be assessed through a General Education and Training Certificate for Schools which should come into operation in 2008, once the revised curriculum arrangements have been put into effect from 2004. Assessment in this General Education and Training Certificate for Schools will be directly linked to the assessment standards which show how the outcome is to be achieved in the different grades and phases.
7. Teaching about Religion and Religions
Teaching about religion, religions, and religious diversity needs to be facilitated by trained professional educators. If Religion Education is to be included in the public school programme on educational grounds, then professional educators, rather than religious clergy, must assume responsibility. Although the leaders of our religious communities must be respected for their expertise within their specific spheres of competence, Religion Education is not a job for clergy because it requires the treatment of various religions within a common theoretical framework, a unified learning programme, and a coherent body of teaching materials - all designed for an integrated classroom with learners from different backgrounds.
Nothing in their religious education or training would necessarily have prepared clergy to be teachers in Religion Education.
Therefore, teaching about religion in our public schools cannot be 'outsourced' to clergy. As an educational programme, Religion Education requires the training, commitment, and enthusiasm of professional educators. Although Religion Education must be sensitive to religious interests by ensuring that religious individuals and groups are protected from ignorance, stereotypes, caricatures, and denigration, it is professional educators who will have to be responsible for working out a programme in Religion Education that serves the educational mission of public schools in a democratic South Africa.
We expect a lot from our teachers. The outcome identified for Religion Education fit with the competencies expected of all teachers in South African schools. As set out in the National Education Policy Act (Act No 27 of 1996), teachers in South African schools have a Community, Citizenship, and Pastoral Role that includes the responsibility to 'practice and promote a critical, committed, and ethical attitude towards developing a sense of respect and responsibility towards others.' This role is demonstrated in the teacher's reflexive, foundational, and practical competency to facilitate learning by:
· Reflecting on ethical issues in religion, politics, human rights, and the environment.
· Knowing about the principles and practices of the main religions of South Africa, the customs, values, and beliefs of the main cultures of South Africa, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
· Knowing about ethical debates in religion, politics, economics, human rights, and the environment.
· Understanding the impact of class, race, gender, and other identity-forming forces in learning.
· Showing an appreciation of, and respect for, people of different values, beliefs, practices, and cultures.
· Being able to respond to current social and educational problems with particular emphasis on the issues of violence, drug abuse, poverty, child and women abuse, HIV/AIDS, and environmental degradation.
· Demonstrating caring, committed, and ethical professional behaviour and an understanding of education as dealing with the protection of children and the development of the whole person.
Like all formal education, Religion Education will ultimately succeed or fail in the classroom based on the quality of the interactions between teachers and students. If a new programme in the field of religion is to be successful, teachers will need to be involved in its design. But teachers will also need access to the necessary support - including textbooks, supplementary materials, handbooks, guidelines for teaching methods and student assessment, and in-service training - that will allow them to build and sustain their professional competence and recognition as teachers in the subject.
Curriculum 2005 and the Revised National Curriculum Statement for Schools (Grades R - 9) assumes that any educator, regardless of his or her personal religious orientation, is called upon to teach in a pluralistic public school in which learners can be expected to belong to different religions. Like educators in all learning areas, teachers of Religion Education will have learners in their classrooms from different religious backgrounds. Professional educators must be trained to deal with this reality.
Increasingly, educators have recognised that the topic of religion is relevant for many subjects within the school curriculum. In the Human and Social Sciences generally, religious topics inevitably arise and need to be dealt with in the classroom. With respect to teacher training, therefore, a course in the study of religion should be part of the education of every teacher, regardless of area of specialisation or teaching subject.
Many teachers have expressed concern about the widespread 'religion illiteracy' found among students. When educators call for support that will enable them to deal with religion in the classroom, they are not asking that education be given a particular kind of religious character. Rather, they are recognising the fact that teachers necessarily have to cover religion - world religions, religious institutions, and relations between religion and society - if they are to provide students with a complete education in the Human and Social Sciences.
Accordingly, guidelines and resources will need to be made available for dealing with religion and religions in the classroom for the Human and Social Sciences.
Teachers have found creative ways to integrate studying about religion in the Human and Social Sciences. Fro example, teachers have successfully experimented with focusing on the term 'religion' as an example of conceptual confusion in order to help students learn about how concepts are formed in social studies more generally. In other cases, teachers have found creative, sensitive, and educationally responsible ways to include religious materials and perspectives in other teaching subjects. The importance of religion has been recognised for the teaching of history, world history, language and literature, including the teaching of the Bible and other sacred texts as literature, art and art history, music, health education, and even science education. In all these subjects, teachers benefit by being prepared, as part of their course of training, to deal with teaching about religion and religions in the classroom.
When Religion Education is a distinct, examinable subject in the curriculum, cooperation between universities, teachers' colleges, and schools is even more essential in providing training for teachers. For their part, university academics can help to provide clarity about the coherence and integrity of the academic study of religion as a field of study. As in any academic field, differences in theory and method can be found. But sufficient consensus has been achieved to locate the academic study of religion firmly within the Human and Social Sciences.
The university's responsibility, however, does not end there. Greater interest and involvement on the part of university departments of Religious Studies in teacher training is necessary to translate the academic study of religion into a viable programme for teachers and schools. Certainly, different approaches to teacher training in the field of religion have been tried. The most successful training, however, has resulted from a close co-operation between universities and schools in the preparation of teachers for Religion Education.
Teachers can be assisted in developing effective teaching methods for Religion Education. In this regard, international guidelines for meeting the challenges and avoiding the pitfalls of teaching Religion Education are available. In these guidelines, teachers are encouraged to adopt as a principle of teaching method the basic distinction between teaching and preaching. Methods used in teaching Religion Education do not include the advocacy of a religious position, the expression of a religious commitment, or a confession of faith. Not a sermon, the Religion Education lesson requires the same pedagogical methods of clarity, communication, interest, and enthusiasm that represent effective teaching in other areas of the school curriculum.
Once we are clear about the difference between preaching and teaching, however, teachers in Religion Education can opt for different teaching methods for engaging students in the subject. Adopting a cognitive approach to the subject, some educators have preferred a method of 'elucidation' designed to clarify the meaning of religious beliefs and practices in their contexts. In this method, students not only learn about the variety of religions, but they are enabled to make free and informed choices about religion in their personal lives.
Other teachers, however, especially those who stress the more affective dimensions of the subject, have adopted an 'interactive approach' to teaching method that attempts to involve students in classroom participation as teachers and students together explore the meaning and significance of religion. In any case, teachers in the field of Religion Education must carefully distinguish their methods from any hint of indoctrination. Avoiding any form of coercion, whether preaching, advocacy, or indoctrination, teaching method in Religion Education can create a free, open space for the exploration of the world of religion.
8. Programmes for Religion Education
Learning programmes in Religion Education must be developed with the necessary coherence and flexibility, depth and scope, and supported by appropriate teaching materials and assessment criteria.
The Department of Education will set up committees to develop learning programmes in Religion Education for different levels that art sufficiently specific to create appropriate teaching materials. While firm on the principles and parameters of Religion Education, which require attention to the rich variety of religions in South Africa and the world, the learning programme can allow space for developing teaching materials that deal with local and regional concerns.
Like any learning programme, the exploration of religion, religions, and religious diversity in Religion Education must be developmental. As research has found, Religion Education can be introduced in ways that are appropriate to the stages of the development of learners even in the foundational schooling phase. For example, students at junior primary level could begin a study of religious diversity by exploring the more tangible forms of religion, the observable aspects of religious diversity found in churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other places of gathering for religious life.
At primary level, students can begin studying the basic component phenomena of religion, such as stories, songs, sacred places, founders, rituals, and festivals, with illustrations drawn from various religious traditions and communities in South Africa and the world. At the junior secondary level, a programme in Religion Education could integrate these component parts of religion into a disciplined study of a variety of religious traditions.
Finally, at senior secondary level, courses in Religion Education can introduce students to the kinds of critical thinking about significant issues of personal morality and social ethics that are often associated with religion. If the structure of knowledge in the field is organised in this way, or in some other developmentally coherent way, Religion Education can be an important subject for cultivating significant knowledge and skills within the total academic curriculum.
Teachers need to know that resources are available to support them in embarking upon the teaching of a new programme of Religion Education for public schools.
Once the Revised National Curriculum Statement is formally declared policy during 2002, learning support materials will be developed to ensure that teachers are able to teach religion education creatively and with understanding. Many children's books, textbooks, supplementary materials and other resources for religion education have been produced over the last few years. All these resources and more are available. These could still be used alongside the newer support material if they are clear and accessible. Supported with viable resources and given the necessary encouragement and recognition, teachers are key to implementing an effective programme in religion education in public schools.
Teachers require agreed guidelines for assessing the performance of students in the subject of Religion Education. Proposed standards of assessment have differed dramatically between courses intended to cultivate personal faith and those designed to teach students about religion. In courses of religious instruction that promote a particular faith, standards of assessment have been developed to measure the 'religious' performance of students. For example, instruments have been developed to measure a student's faith, religious practice, and attitudes about religious and social questions in programmes of religious instruction. Although such systems of assessment might be regarded as appropriate for religious schools, they clearly contradict the educational ethos of public schools in which a student's academic rather than 'religious' performance is measured. Ironically, perhaps, students themselves have assessed these programs in religious instruction as failures. Research in Great Britain, for example, has shown that student attitudes toward religion have actually declined under the influence of this type of religious instruction.
A Religion Education programme, however, does not assess a student's faith. If students in Religion Education cannot be tested, examined, and assessed by the methods used in other subjects, then Religion Education has no place in the public school curriculum.
As we have determined, if Religion Education is to be a subject in public schools, it has to teach students the same abilities in observation, reading, writing, and thinking that apply in other areas of the curriculum. Accordingly, assessment of student performance must be conducted on the same basis as other subjects.
Although we have a lot of work to do in developing a distinctively South African programme for Religion Education, we are convinced that our country has sufficient expertise and energy to meet the challenge. As a matter of priority, we must deploy our intellect, imagination, talent, and human capacity in the work of creating and sustaining Religion Education and other educational initiatives in our schools that will build national unity in and through our diversity.
Religion Education can contribute to creating an integrated school community that affirms unity in diversity. Unity is not uniformity. In providing a unified framework for teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity, Religion Education does not suggest that all religions are the same. Nor does it try to select bits and pieces from different religious traditions to build a single religion. Religion Education is not a project in social or religious engineering designed to establish a uniformity of religious beliefs and practices. Any attempt to establish religious uniformity would violate the values of the Constitution and the integrity of Religion Education. Since it is not a religious activity, Religion Education does not promote religious relativism, religious syncretism, or any other religious position in relation to the many religions in South Africa and the world. By creating a free, open space for exploration, Religion Education demonstrates respect for the distinctive character of different religious ways of life.
Like the public school, Religion Education is designed for diversity. As we overcome the entrenched separations of the past, we are finding new ways to celebrate our different linguistic, cultural, and religious resources. Diversity is not divisiveness.
By providing a coherent framework for teaching and learning about our different religions, Religion Education can contribute to the knowledge and understanding that are necessary to build bridges across the divisions of our society.
We must move decisively beyond the barriers erected by apartheid, that is, beyond the carefully cultivated shields provided by ignorance of the other, which invariably breeds suspicion, ending in hatred and even violence. It is time for all people of goodwill to know and understand the diversity of religious and other worldviews that are held by their fellow citizens. Every child has the right to quality education in this most important area of human development and social relations. By working together, everyone involved in education - teachers and students, principals and administrators, trade unions and professional associations, parents and School Governing Bodies - can benefit from the inter-religious knowledge and understanding cultivated in Religion Education.
Our policy for religion in education, therefore, is designed to support unity without uniformity and diversity without divisiveness. Accordingly, our public schools cannot establish the uniformity of religious education in a single faith or the divisiveness of religious education through separate programmes for a prescribed set of faiths. Neither course would advance unity in diversity. In any event, as we have established, our schools are not in the business of privileging, prescribing, or promoting any religion. Schools have a different responsibility in providing opportunities for teaching and learning about our religious diversity and our common humanity.
Although the goal of unity in diversity must be achieved within the formal learning programmes of the curriculum, our policy also has clear implications for the role of religion in the life of a public school. In particular, our policy clarifies the role of religion in the school's space that might be given to religious instruction and the school's time that might be devoted to assembly. Our policy for religion, religious observances, and school assembly upholds the principles of a cooperative model for relations between religion and the state by maintaining constitutional separation in the formal activities of the school but allowing scope for interaction in forming voluntary associations.
In accordance with the Constitution (15[2]) and the South African Schools Act (section 7), the School Governing Bodies of public schools may make their facilities available for religious instruction, such as worship, prayer, religious singing, and devotional scripture reading. However, such religious instruction can only be permitted if they are free and voluntary associations outside of the formal activities of the school. In allowing space for free and voluntary religious association, the school must ensure that any of its facilities that are used for such purposes are made available on an equitable basis to all who apply. Religious instruction, however, shall not be conducted as part of the formal teaching or official activities of the school. Although religious instruction may be allowed on a free and equal basis on the school property, they are not structurally part of the official business of the public school.
Recognising that weekly assembly is a longstanding tradition in many of our schools, we nevertheless find that assembly shall not be compulsory for public schools. If School Governing Bodies do allocate time for assembly, however, it shall not be an occasion for religious instruction. By assuming a single, common religion for the school, religious instruction during assembly, such as prayer, religious singing, and devotional scripture reading, turn that school-opening ceremony into a formal occasion for imposing religious uniformity.
Although students from different religious backgrounds might be able to be excused under a 'conscience clause,' the fact that they have to invoke such a clause shows that the school has violated their constitutionally protected freedom of conscience by establishing religious instruction in its assembly. We cannot allow our schools to violate that freedom by imposing religious uniformity or entrenching religious divisions in school assemblies. Like the rest of the school's learning programmes, the assembly should be an occasion for affirming and celebrating unity in diversity. Accordingly, if religious materials are used in assembly, they should be presented in the framework outlined for Religion Education as an educational exercise rather than as a religious ceremony.
According to our Constitution, citizens have the right at their own expense to establish independent schools, including religious schools, as long as they avoid racial discrimination, register with the state, and maintain standards that are not inferior to the standards of comparable public educational institutions (9[3]). In maintaining the educational standards with respect to religion outlined in this policy, independent schools shall include programmes in Religion Education in addition to whatever programmes they may wish to develop in religious education or religious instruction.
This national policy for religion in education seeks to put into practice the motto of the Department of Education - Tirisano, Working Together - as more than merely a slogan. As much more than merely the slogan of an advertising or public-relations campaign, Tirisano is a promise that can only be realised by working together. It must be put to work.
We are the workers. By bringing together educators, administrators, parents, learners, and all people of good will to work towards unity in diversity, we can make working together - Tirisano - a living, breathing, and dynamic reality in our educational system.
Religion Education is one aspect of that project. It is one way in which we can all work together to ensure that our children gain the knowledge and understanding of religion, religions, and religious diversity that will be necessary for them to live in the South African society and global reality of their future. As we preserve our heritage from the past and respect our diversity in the present, we owe our learners the best education that we can provide in preparing them for the future. By working together, we can build new bridges into a future of unity in diversity.
1. Values
1.1 Policy for religion in education must be consistent with core constitutional values of citizenship, equality, human rights, freedom for religion, and freedom from religious discrimination.
1.2 Policy for religion in education must be consistent with core educational values that include equity, tolerance, multilingualism, openness, accountability, and social honour.
2. Religion at School
2.1 Religious education with specific religious aims is the responsibility of the home, family, and religious community.
2.2 Religion Education, with clear educational outcomes, is the responsibility of the school.
3. Religion Education
3.1 As an educational programme for teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity, Religion Education shall be adopted by South African schools.
3.2 Religion Education shall include teaching and learning about the major religions of the world, with particular attention to the religions of South Africa, as well as secular worldviews, and shall place adequate emphasis on values and moral education.
3.3 As a programme for both integration and specialisation, Religion Education shall be developed in both General Education and Training (the GET band) and Further Education and Training (the FET band).
(a) Religion Education shall be introduced into various learning areas, especially Life Orientation, in the GET band.
(b) Religion Education shall be organised into a distinct learning programme in the FET band.
(c) Religion Education - as Religion Studies - shall be introduced in the FET band for matriculation purposes as an optional, specialised, and examinable subject with a career orientation towards teaching, social work, community development, public service, and related vocations.
4. Learning about Religion and Religions
4.1 The teaching of religion education is encapsulated in an appropriate outcome and assessment standards showing how the outcome is to be achieved in the Life Orientation learning area.
4.2 Since Religion Education is the educational responsibility of the school, Curriculum 2005 must be amended to remove the recommendation that 'mechanisms be put in place to facilitate the development of learning programmes for religious education by individual religious communities, in conjunction with education authorities, for delivery, on a free and voluntary basis, in public schools' (Introduction 4.4).
5. Teaching about Religion and Religions
5.1 Accepting their civic responsibility with respect to religion in education, School Governing Bodies shall not outsource Religion Education to representatives of religious institutions but shall entrust the role of teaching to adequately trained professional educators.
5.2 Since Religion Education must be facilitated by adequately trained educators, tertiary institutions are called upon to provide the necessary training for prospective educators by introducing suitable courses in the academic study of religion and religions in Higher Education (the HE band) to comply with the Norms and Standards for Educators. Such courses in the academic study of religion and religions should be of two types:
(a) General basic training in the academic study of religion, with attention to both content and relevant teaching methods, applicable to all prospective educators in both the GET and FET bands.
(b) Specialised training in programmes designed for specialist religion educators, particularly to prepare teachers for programmes in Religion Studies in the FET band.
5.3 In view of the serious backlog of trained religion educators, in-service training for educators should be developed as a priority in the context of the implementation of the Revised National Curriculum Statement.
6. Programmes in Religion Education
6.1 Learning programmes are programmes that organise learning outcomes and assessment standards into teaching, learning and assessment activities. The national and provincial departments of education will collaboratively develop comprehensive policy guidelines on how to design different types of learning programmes. Teachers will use these guidelines as well as this framework to develop learning programmes. As primary providers of learning opportunities in the classroom environment, teachers should ensure that they reflect learners' needs. Teachers should work collaboratively within and across grades to develop learning programmes.
6.2 Within the framework of Religion Education, learning programmes can be sufficiently flexible to incorporate local and regional content so long as the curriculum includes a variety of religions and secular worldviews in South Africa and the world.
6.3 Teaching materials for the GET and FET bands shall be developed as a matter of urgency through the efforts of provincial authorities, relevant learning area committees, tertiary institutions, publishers, materials developers and researchers in religion education. Learning programme guidelines will be developed in 2001 and teachers will develop learning programmes thereafter.
6.4 Religion education will be assessed on the basis of the learning outcome and assessment standards of the Life Orientation learning area. Assessment standards will be used for both continuous, formative assessment as well as for summative assessment. Assessment standards indicate what has to be assessed in order to discover whether learners have achieved the standards.
6.5 After appropriate assessment criteria have been developed by the relevant structures and processes, School Governing Bodies shall ensure that Religion Education is assessed like every other field of learning in accordance with the same critical cross-field outcomes and assessment criteria and that the assessment is reflected in the reporting system.
7. Unity in Diversity
7.1 National policy for religion in education is designed to support unity without uniformity and diversity without divisiveness.
7.2 In Accordance with the Constitution (15[2]) and the South African Schools Act (section 7), the School Governing Bodies of public schools may make their facilities available for religious observances, such as worship, prayer, religious singing, and devotional scripture reading, in the context of free and voluntary association and on the assumption that facilities should be made available on an equitable basis to all who apply.
Religious instruction, however, shall not be conducted as part of official school teaching.
7.3 Assembly shall not be compulsory for public schools. If School Governing Bodies allocate time for assembly, it shall not be an occasion for religious instruction, although it might incorporate teaching materials developed in the framework of Religion Education. When assemblies are organised by the school they should be of an ecumenical nature.
7.4 In order to maintain national educational standards, independent schools shall include programmes in Religion Education in addition to whatever programmes they may wish to develop in religious education or religious instruction. Such programmes must observe the constitutional prohibition of any form of caricaturing or denigration of others.
7.5 With respect to religion in education, the motto of the Department of Education - Tirisano, Working Together - calls for the combined efforts of everyone involved in education to work towards preserving our heritage from the past, respecting our diversity in the present, and building our capacity for living in a future of unity in diversity. "