RELIGION-IN-EDUCATION MANAGEMENT PRACTICE: A SYNTHESIS OF LITERATURE

Abstract

The world over, countries uphold both religion and education as basic human rights. Therefore education and religion are legally intersected and cannot be separated from the lives of learners, teachers, headteachers, board of managers, and parents among other stakeholders in a school. In this regard, experienced headteachers tend to leverage their own salient religious backing alongside active educational curriculum. The importance of religion can therefore not be gainsaid. Given that these educators have lived a religion that has espoused culture, values, morals, and practices, such propagation through religion-in-education to the learner may sometimes not be intentional. It is expressed involuntarily alongside curriculum implementation. However, owing to personal perceptions of their positional, cultural or religious authority and superiority, they may wittingly strategize to either diminish or enhance learner religious profession and practices. Educational institutions should cautiously avoid religious extremists. Such extremists may hinge towards converting learners to the choice religious beliefs and practices thus hindering learner religious freedom. The result would be a conflict with parents, teachers , and school managements of other, sometimes conflicting religious beliefs. The headteacher as a manager should lead by example to achieve learner educational objectives which sometimes is in conflict with their individual or groups religious rights. The challenge to school managers is the need to balance religious and educational rights in a religion-in-education multi-religious, multi-denominational and therefore multi-cultural context.