Moral Education in Kenyan Schools at Cross Roads. Isn’t It Time to Introduce a Stand-Alone Moral Education Curriculum?

Abstract

One of Kenya’s national goals of education is to promote sound moral and religious values in the learners. While moral values have an intrinsic good of helping students grow up into responsible adults capable of enjoying a good life, there is a clear moral deterioration among the Kenyan youth. A number of people are thus wondering where the youth are heading. This is because cases of drug abuse, alcoholism, violence, theft, teenage pregnancies, rape and suicide are being the cases reported almost daily in the media. It is quite evident that something is wrong with the value systems of our youth. Moral education has been entrusted to the school. However, it is possible that the school syllabi do not contain requisite elements that could enable learners to develop the needed moral insights. Since independence moral education has been taught using religious education subjects namely Christian Religious Education (CRE), Islamic Religious education (IRE) and Hindu Religious education (HRE) as well as Social Education and Ethics (SEE). But in spite of the existence of these subjects in the curriculum, moral standards among the youth have remained low. It seems that the teaching of moral goals of education through religious education subjects has not achieved the intended objective. This paper presents a discussion on the need to develop a stand-alone moral education curriculum with clear objectives in the Kenyan school curriculum.