Religious studies in South(ern) Africa - an overview

What is it about?

By the end of 2003, two major developments stood to reshape the study of religion in South Africa. The first is the merger of universities and other tertiary educational institutions, which has made the position of smaller disciplines quite precarious. The other development is more positive. According to a new government policy on the role of religion in education approved in August 2003, Religious Studies will be presented at school level in two forms. Firstly, it will be present as one-sixth of the curriculum of the learning area known as Life Orientation, which will be compulsory for all learners from grades 0 to 12. It will also be presented as a full examinable subject, to be called Religion Studies, in Grades 10 to 12. This paper discusses previous overviews of the state of Religious Studies in South Africa, maps the current state of the discipline in the country and some of its neighbours, and extrapolates possi ble future developments. In this, it is an attempt to create a baseline against which future evaluations of the discipline in South(ern) Africa may gauge the progress (or lack thereof) made in this field.

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