We cannot ignore the gruesome conducts, acts and behaviour of learners in our schools, it is really alarming and making every parent wonder if their child is safe at school nowadays. It is clear that the absence of religious influence is the contributing factor to these behaviour. Our democracy has written off the religious influence in our schools because they felt it was focusing only on Christianity, yet we cannot ignore the reality that such decision has had a negative impact on the education sector, thus contributing negatively to the behaviour and conduct of learners. It seems like we’ve allowed other spiritual influences such as satanism to take over, hence we witness immorality, misconducts and the killings of learners by fellow leaners.
We used to have “Assembly” during our school days, it used to help learners to have a positive attitude towards the day, to have a relaxed mentality, to forget all the bad things we might have experienced in our dysfunctional homes and have a positive start to a day. Respect was maintained towards education and towards our teachers, thus many of us became better people than just being academically over-qualified individuals with no wisdom nor morals. We saw our teachers as parents and treated them the same. There was not much about rights but about shaping our future. I may sound like I am from the 1950’s but I am talking about 15 years ago.
Inasmuch as we are a diverse country trying to create a balance in many areas, we are not in control of what such decision has done to our country, for it cost so many innocent lives, destroyed potential future leaders and damaged dreams and visions of wise learners. Yet to this day we still ask ourselves “what is going on?”. Religious influence has had a positive outcome than democracy. I believe that the only reason it was removed, far beyond the issue of tolerance of religious diversity, the decision was influence by retaliation to the apartheid regime as many believed that religion came as a result of such. But we cannot argue the fact that we had better, functional and respectful environments and love for education.
We have schools in our country which base their education of their own religion and would not compromise, like Muslims and Catholics. Have we ever heard of such cruel and gruesome acts in such schools? If you think about how it was done before, the “assembly” was not promoting any form of religion but was focusing on God, and every religion is all about God as far as I know. The longer we convince ourselves that these acts are not spiritually influenced, the more we going experience such conducts in our schools. If people believe that they are satanists, then surely they believe that there is God, yet they choose to be satanists. Morals and principles are influenced by our spiritual background, they do not come from nowhere, these are Biblical principles. None of us was born with morals and good principles, we were taught these things and they’ve shaped our lives in a positive way.
I still believe that good things should have been adopted from the apartheid regime, especially those that influence and promote moral values.
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