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.
