Ethics and Morality in a Religious Educational Community: The Self Understanding of Catholic University Education in Zambia

Abstract

The article engages the ways in which ethics and morality were upheld and sustained in the Catholic university education community in Zambia. It is informed by insights from an interpretive phenomenological study on the Catholic Church’s provision of university education in Zambia. Catholic university education was an avenue for teaching what was deemed as good and bad, right and wrong, and upholding these teachings over time. This was facilitated by the teachings, practices and organisational structures of Catholic university education anchored in a holistic and humanistic approach to education and social teachings of the Church. The article argues that while religion-affiliated educational institutions emerged to complement state provision of higher education in post-1990s Zambia, they also provided an example of a bridge between religion and morality by way of being nurseries and repositories for transmitting ethics and morals in contemporary society.