OGOD! Put children first in this emotive issue of religion

The High Court in Johannesburg has started hearing arguments in the long-awaited "OGOD" matter, a precedent-setting case for the practising of religion in government schools.

Hans Pietersen, representing the Organisation for Religious Education and Democracy (OGOD), wants the court to declare the religious policies of six schools unconstitutional. He believes these schools are discriminating against other religions by only practising Christianity.

Pietersen's application is opposed by the Federation of Governing Bodies for South African Schools, who argue that schools have the right to choose their own religious ethos.

OGOD argues that it is unconstitutional for a public school to promote a single religion, and that pupils who've had to leave the daily assembly because they followed a different faith were being discriminated against.

A similar debate raged in Britain about two years ago. The Telegraph reported that humanists had scored a landmark high court victory which found that atheism had been unlawfully excluded from the curriculum.

In Britain, it is compulsory for state schools to offer religious education as a subject, but it is not compulsory for pupils to take it.

In France, religious education is replaced by "non-religious moral teaching" and in Japan, where there is a clear separation between the state and religion, schools offer a compulsory short course on "ethics".

In Malaysia, non-Muslim pupils do a course in "moral studies", while Muslim pupils attend Islamic studies. In Norway, the constitution mandates parents belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church to provide a religious upbringing for their children.

The moral of the story? Judging by how different nations seem to have found their own way of dealing with the emotive issue of religion, South Africa should be able to do the same. Find a midway where children's interests are placed first in an always inclusive society.