Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Niger State Chapter, has called on the state government to urgently return the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge, CRK, to all public schools in the state.
The demand for the CRK has been a running battle between the Association and the state government since the past 20 years.
CAN state chairman, Dr. Bulus Yohanna, while speaking, yesterday, in Minna, Niger State, at the 45th anniversary and National Conference of the National Association of Christian Religious Educators of Nigeria, NACREN, noted that CRK as a subject in public schools would help address huge percentage of social vices among the teeming youths and also instill morals in the children.
In his address tagged ‘Who is Afraid of CRK in public schools?’ the CAN Chairman said: “What is good for the goose is good for the gander. The segregation, marginalisation and unfair treatment on the CRK teachers by government at all levels should stop. The type of emphasis on ICT, Technology, Entrepreneur sectors and so on by government against CRK being totally relegated cannot help as teaching of the religion in schools would help to transform the society morally.”
Yohanna who is also the Catholic Bishop of Kontagora Diocese, explained that Government needed to hear and act to several calls made by CAN in the past years on the need towards return the teaching of CRK in public schools as being done with the Islamic Religious Knowledge, IRK, to ensure fair play and justice. He explained that in 2004 when there were about 152 public schools in the state, there were only 120 CRK teachers noting that in 2004 when Niger hosted the National Conference of CRK Teachers, the statistics given CAN by government was 220 CRK teachers including the non-qualified teachers for over 450 schools.
According to him, “With the 2016 statistical data, the state needed about 300 CRK teachers for the over 300 schools in the state but as at today, most of the CRK teachers have either retired while some of them who are still in active service have been converted to teach Social Studies or any other subjects. This had been a big challenge and CAN had in the past engaged volunteer teachers and even paid stipends to fill the gap while the story is different with the Islamic Religious Knowledge, IRK, as they have qualified teachers to teach in most of the schools in the state”.
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