Educators Want Schools To Embrace More Christian Values.....calling for a revolution in the education sector, which would promote lessons in morals and sound Christian values to the top of the academic agenda.

Published: Monday | March 17, 2014 I  Rhoma Tomlinson, Contributor

A number of prominent educators are calling for a revolution in the education sector, which would promote lessons in morals and sound Christian values to the top of the academic agenda.

Ruel Reid

The educators believe that while Jamaica has been doing well in expanding the knowledge base of students, not enough attention is being paid to the spiritual side.

The chairman of the National Council on Education, Dr Simon Clarke, who has served the local and international education sectors in a number of capacities, traced the history of the nation's school system since the 1960s. He says there has been great effort to expand knowledge and improve skills, "but where I think some degree of slippage happened is in the area of personal and social development. These were left behind".

He cited the 2001 terrorist attack in the United States, noting that "the men who flew the plane into the towers were all well-educated, but something was lacking - that humane element … ".

Clarke believes schools should be deliberate in exposing students to the "whole persona".

"We're made up of different components - the physical, the mind, and the spiritual component. The spiritual is that which links the person to a wider source of knowledge. We're doing well with the physical, but it's that third dimension, the spiritual, that we need to focus on. I'm not saying that schools must indoctrinate or push any particular kind of denomination, but they must accommodate and make them (students) sensitive that life does not stop with what we can see." 

CONTROVERSIAL CRUSADE.....more