SINCE the start of the new academic year last September, schools have expanded the traditional religious education curriculum from just Bible Knowledge to teachings in a variety of religions in an effort, educators say, to broaden students’ perspective of other doctrines.

According to Phyllis Reynolds, assistant chief education officer in the Ministry of Education’s curriculum division, the new religious education curriculum will be phased-in over three years and has been designed to broaden the children’s insight into religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism.

“Religious education is being packaged to give them an analytical understanding of the part it plays in their lives,” Reynolds said.

She told the Observer that in the first phase, upper primary school students, starting in Grade 4, will be exposed to the nature of religion worldwide. That includes:

* an overview of religion as practised locally;

* features common to religions and religious groups (1); and

* features common to religions and religious groups (2).

In phase two, the students, who would have moved up to Grade 5, will examine how religions adapted to Caribbean life, while in the third phase, Grade 6 students will study religion in daily life.

The curriculum change precedes the introduction of a new Bible written in simple language, particularly for school children, which was launched Monday by the Bible Society of the West Indies at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

According to Clive Edwards of the Bible Society, the modern text, called the Good News School Bible, will provide a simpler, easier text that will enable children to understand and gain exposure to the Word of God.

Rev Courtney Stewart, general-secretary of the Bible Society, said that the Good News Bible would be a contemporary translation of the King James version, which he described as outdated, given that the English Language had changed significantly over the past 300 years and the current Bible, he said, contained 300 words that now had completely different meanings.

Stewart said that scientific research two years ago, in which 1,000 primary schoolchildren were interviewed, found that 86 of every 100 best understood the Good News version of the Bible.

The Gospel of Mark, handed out at the launch and which is a prototype of what the Good News Bible will be like, includes an overview of how the Bible came into being, what the Bible has to say about difficult issues, maps and books of the Bible in alphabetical order.