Ethics instead of religion: what is the new subject students are getting?

Parents of some schoolchildren have recently received letters at home, asking them to choose whether their children will be studying religion or ethics in the upcoming scholastic year. 

Originally introduced three years ago as a pilot project in five government schools, ethics is now offered as a subject in 13 government primary schools and 14 middle and secondary schools. 

As of next year, it will be offered in six new primary schools (Marsascala, Santa Venera, San Gwann. Gzira, Naxxar and Gharghur), and in three new middle and secondary schools (Handaq, Birkirkara, and the National Sports School).

What exactly is an ethics education though? An analysis of the curricula of the ethics programme shows that it is intended to teach students how to think introspectively and argue critically – gradually proceeding from getting children to question why they have been given a name to provoking discussion on euthanasia and abortion.

Ethics for kids 

Year 1 students are introduced to ethics with some relatively deep discussions for 4-5 year olds focusing on their personal identities, and getting them to understand that people are complex beings. They are asked questions such as why they have been given a name, to describe themselves and others, and are given discussion tasks such as to imagine a world without names or a world where everyone looked and acted the same. Children are then taught the notions of privacy, responsibility and family values, as well as the significance of owning a pet and the concept of animal cruelty.

In Year 2, children enter into discussion about friendship, classmates and communities, and about whether they should step in to help friendless children at their school. They also learn about the importance of rules and of authority figures, and the teacher engages them in discussion on whether there should be any limitations on punishment.

In Year 3, children get to discuss whether they should care about strangers in the school, about other people’s property, their neighbourhoods and the natural environment. It is here that they are introduced to their first controversial discussion – hunting. 

In Year 4, children start learning about basic values, and are asked whether disabled people and talented people deserve to be politically discriminated at times. The teacher uses stories like that of Anne Frank to encourage students to be honest so as to gain the trust of others, and later promotes the value of courage as a middle ground between rashness and cowardice.

Discussion on values and virtues proceeds in Year 5, with the teacher introducing concepts such as ‘good and evil’ and free will. 

Students also spend a large chunk of the year discussing diversity, with the teacher promoting tolerance, solidarity and open-mindedness towards people from other communities. 

It is only in Year 6 that students start learning about religion, specifically Christianity, Islam and Judaism, with the teacher making sure to focus on the similarities between them, and later also about secular humanism. The teacher puts the faith-reason dichotomy up for discussion, nudging students to the conclusion that the dichotomy is a false one, as religious people need not lack reason while humanists have faith in things like science, humanity, or secular ideologies.

Ethics for pre-teens and teens

The ethics programme in Form 1 focuses on the modern idea of rights, including that they are never absolute and that they always come attached with duties and responsibilities, and about whether some rights should also be extended to animals. 

It is in this year that students are instructed to start keeping a weekly Ethics Journal, in which they record the ethics sessions of the week. 

Discussion becomes more sophisticated in Form 2, where students discuss the limitations on human freedom and whether they should be morally obliged to obey harmful commands from authoritative figures.

In Form 3, discussion for the 12-13 years old ethics students revolves around respect for self and others – with tricky discussion topics such as integrating into foreign cultures, pornography and child pornography, cyber-bullying, censorship, addictions and self-harm, with a brief discussion on suicide. 

They are also introduced to moral dilemmas – such as whether they would choose to save a friend or three complete strangers from a burning house. 

Love and sex are the key focal points of discussion in Form 4, with students instructed in topics such as the difference between love and sexual attraction, responsible sex, sexual consent, and the sexual abuse of minors.

The most controversial topic in the course is saved for last, with Form 5 ethics students engaging in discussion about life and death issues – such as war, torture, terrorism, capital punishment, euthanasia, suicide, contraception and abortion, with the teacher obliged to keep an open discussion and not advocating any particular stance. 

Abortion, so far a taboo in Maltese political discourse, is the final topic for discussion and is specifically discussed separately from contraception so as to encourage students not to conflate the issues.

Students are asked to discuss deep questions such as whether the unborn have an absolute right to life, whether mothers should be allowed abortions in life-threatening situations or in cases when the life in her womb suffers from a condition of very serious disability.

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