The Schools are one of the privileged places for religious plurality and cultural
diversity. With the increase in the different types of religions, school managers are facing
mounting challenges. This is due to the fact that there is an urgent need to articulate the
school mission- ensuring that the students acquired adequate knowledge with a good
socialization where mutual respect is preserved.
Subsequently, the diversity in the school became unmanageable because of the parents
exigencies. Today, parents are being quite selective where spirituality course is concerned.
There are parents for whom spirituality remains pertinent for the children?s development, but
there are parents who refused to be affiliated with any form of spirituality. They valorized
mainly some forms of humanization courses and a neutral society. The question is how to
articulate those expectations in one school? What kind of religious plurality?s organization the
school managers have to put in place? Can religious education cope with those needs? Or,
maybe, religious courses are obsolete, and new courses like citizenship need to be innovated.
It is so complex to unify all those requests in one course. There are various reflections, which
said mutual enrichment is primordial, for this is the foundation to ensure that the diversity is
not jeopardized in school. But how well can this be done? That would be one of our
reflections for this thesis- how to ensure the smooth running of pluralism and diversity in
public schools?
Whilst openness towards diversity is vital for a better vivre ensemble (peaceful
cohabitation of different religious views), we may question, why should the Catholic Church
be omitted in such project? This Church remains the pillar of the society and it has proven
unbeaten in the organization of the school system, thus why should it be replaced? There are
European countries like Belgium, where the Catholic schools play an important role in
education. So, another part of my research will deal with the conflict of interests between
various actors. In education, there are clashes among Churches, Nation state, and nongovernmental
organizations, on how best the education should be structured, but more
specifically, the role of the various churches in schools. Whilst some governments recognized
various religions and give them right to be taught in public schools, other refused
categorically that the schools should cater for them