-by Kimberly Giddings

The Ministry of Education has officially rolled out moral and civic education as a stand-alone subject in schools nationwide.

The goal is to strengthen patriotism, values, and civic responsibilities among students from nursery through secondary.

Education Minister Sonia Parag says the programme has already been placed on school timetables following consultations with district education officers, head teachers and senior education managers across nursery, primary and secondary schools.

She explained that moral and civic education will be taught in the mornings at all levels, with the curriculum tailored to each age group to ensure students learn content appropriate to their stage of development.

“These are standalone subjects, so we don’t want them to be incorporated. So you’ll have an element, for example, of moral education in some other subject, or you will have a component of civic education, perhaps in history, or one of those subjects. And so we don’t just want it to be a component, we want it to be taught as a standalone, as a separate subject, because it deserves that sort of importance,” the minister said.

The programme aims to instill national identity, unity, and good values from an early age. 

Students will learn respect, civic duty, democracy, and cooperation, helping to shape responsible citizens and future leaders.

“What is more important to me for something like moral education is not just placing a paragraph on it on a blackboard and teaching it to a student or and say repeat that or rewrite that. That’s not how it should work because in reality and in everyday life you have to live and behave in that manner. And moral education will contribute to your behavioral patterns. So the school system has to also incorporate in their curriculum how a child will develop in terms of their behavior,”

The curriculum is designed to be age-appropriate, with content aligned to what students should learn at each stage of their development.