DEBATE - RELIGION SHOULD BE TAUGHT AT SCHOOLS (against).

AGAINST THE MOTION.

By Akshaya Ramesh

School is a place for attaining knowledge, not a battle ground for people to prove the superiority of their religion - which will eventually happen, if religion is taught at schools. Religion has already embarked upon Politics and the last thing we need is Educational Institutions associated with religion.

Religion is a highly sensitised issue. People identifying themselves by their religion are easily offended. No matter how hard we try to balance the study of each religion, their dissenting interpretation and values might be contradictory and the slightest error or negligence might be blown out of proportion! 

One religion alone has a myriad of details. Students don't just study religion at schools and feeding such a vast amount of information to youngsters is unacceptable and time-consuming.

I see no point in introducing religion study as a means to impart values and and morals, when we have parents and teachers to help us discern right and wrong, impart values and punish them for their misconducts - introducing religious studies will, in no way, encourage students to imbibe values. All they're ever going to do is take this as an insignificant subject, that they would attend for the sake of it and barely pay attention to what's happening in class.

My worthy opponents may put forth the argument that over the course of say about 12 years of schooling, it isn't impossible to cover the studies of all the religions, that it is possible to give the students a general idea of each - I absolutely agree. But what is the point in introducing "religious studies" just so they get a "general idea"? If a subject is introduced, it must be taught in detail - but obviously and unfortunately it would be virtually impossible to draft a generic curriculum that would #1 include all of the details, #2 succeed in pleasing everyone and #3 not offending anyone. The framers of the curriculum could definitely be motivated by political agenda and inevitably, the instructors will have a soft spot for their religion. There's no way we can stop them from being biased and winding up preaching their religion. Result? Children would grow up with partial knowledge and tend to be judgemental.

What will happen to atheists? We can't force them to take these classes and we can't exempt them. Will they even get a choice, in the first place? What are they to do while the believers study "religions"? Do we have to sit by and watch while the "believers" mock the "atheists" and alienate them like it's a sin for questioning the existence of God(which is probably what they'll be learning), for not believing in something that hasn't been proved yet. That's what they get for having different opinions.

Society is profoundly blemished by religious differences. It is an extremely impractical idea to introduce religious studies to facilitate tolerance and harmony among various religious groups. I do acknowledge the importance of it, but given that the aforementioned problems are more than just probable to occur, we need a more efficient and rational idea than this one.

If everyone is taught religion at school, it becomes a norm to believe. Gen Y deserves a chance to look within, choose to believe what they want and seek answers.

DEBATE - RELIGION SHOULD BE TAUGHT AT SCHOOLS (for).

FOR THE MOTION.

By Abhilaasha Kaul

In today’s society full of ever-aggressive secular policies, people who view themselves as open minded individuals, the self proclaimed/anointed defenders of reason per say view any attempt to impart religious education with a grimacing sneer. Religion is viewed by them as backward; the last remaining traces of Neanderthal teleology. But religion in civilised societies has come further along.

Religion is the very foundation of our society. Globalisation made us realise that there are myriads of religious orders and groups and although we might not see eye to eye with all of them, we still need to co- exist with them, respect them. How can you respect something you know nothing about?

Everyone has a religion, even atheists religiously practise no religion. If religion is that integral to our lives then how can we ignore the need to learn about it at school? 

Now I understand that my opponents will charge to say that there are too many religions to cover and picking which religion to teach and which not to would lead to controversies and arguments. to them I say, an average Indian school completes about 221 working days a year. Do you really believe that over the course of 12 years, we can’t give our students at least a working understanding of most religions? Emphasis being on most. Admittedly, teaching every nuance of every religion would not be possible but teaching at least a fundamental and basic knowledge is. If you’re worried about the students not paying attention or increasing their work load, then well by that logic please let us stop the moral science classes as well because students do not pay attention (which by the way they will because unlike the ever so preachy moral science classes the religious studies classes would teach them about the beliefs of the people around them) or stop teaching science and psychology because you can’t explain every concept in detail.

Besides how are religion studies any different from studying sociology or even history for that matter. When we are already studying the living and structural patterns of different societies then why shouldn’t we study about their belief system and faith as well?

When we are taught about Hitler and Nazism then should we not be taught about Judaism?

The concept is simple - teaching and preaching are not the same things. If religion studies are implemented in schools in an unbiased and objective way then what’s the harm? A broader curriculum would fulfil the purpose of the education system; Creating global citizens who are tolerant, understanding and open to different opinions. What the students would taught would not be stories that the teacher concocted but matter compiled by experts.

Even so, if a school doesn’t want to teach this subject then at least organise workshops or include it in the morning assembly as a theme- anything would suffice at this point of time.

Coming to the point that religion studies serve to magnify religious differences and strain relations between groups, well these strains and differences already exist and right now at the educational front we are just pretending that they don’t. Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away! In fact understanding each other’s point of view will facilitate harmony among different groups. We have tried working around religion by making sure that no educational institution touches the subject with a fifty feet tall pole and it has not worked in our favour. Is it not time to try a different approach?