Atheists Want Religious Studies Scrapped from Kenya’s School Syllabus

Atheists in Kenya Society (AIK) has called for the abolishment of religious studies from the Kenyan education system.

AIK president Nyende Mumia said Christian, Islamic, and Hindu Religious Education (CRE, IRE, and HRE) should be scrapped from the curriculum.

He argues that the inclusion of CRE, IRE, and HRE in the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) is flawed as it assumes that Kenya only has three religions—Christianity, Islam, and Hindu.

Instead, the atheists' group proposed that religious education be replaced with philosophy and ethics.

“We propose the introduction of a new subject called Philosophy and Ethics to replace CRE, IRE, and HRE that will provide an inclusive and neutral environment for pupils to better understand and explore the views and opinions of people whose beliefs and values differ from their own,” said Mumia.

Mumia stated that the new subject will include “objective education about religious belief, but not to the detriment of other important philosophical and ethical perspectives like humanism, atheism, Buddhism, polytheism, naturalism e.t.c.”

AIK urged the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to consider the society’s proposal in its review of the CBC.

“Religious Education reform is a necessary process at this point in time, especially now that a number of stakeholders are raising concerns with regards to the Competency-Based Curriculum. We would like the KICD to afford the country an opportunity to revisit, revise and appraise its religious education system, especially the teaching of CRE, IRE and HRE.”