Source

LONDON, ENGLAND, August 19, 2004: Jay Lakhani of the Vivekananda Centre London (“source”) reports:



Forty-three percent of our candidates in A2 (Philosophy + Hinduism) have scored A grade. (The national average for A grades in Advanced level this year is about 24 percent). Some of our candidates have again scored a perfect 100 percent on the Hinduism Modules. The results are quite amazing as the A2 (Advanced level in Hinduism) course we taught was conducted through about 25 sessions of 30 minutes each. And hardly any candidate did any homework during the course!



In days to come, the Philosophy of Religion module in Religious Education will be strongly influenced by the Hindu response to some of the pointed questions asked of all religions. The problem we face when teaching “Philosophy of Religion” at the moment is two-fold: We have to teach the Hinduism candidates not only the Abrahamic response to philosophic questions but also the Hindu response. In many cases the Hindu response is in broad agreement with the agnostic stance of Huxley or the atheistic stance of Hume. Our candidates can appreciate this but we are pretty sure that the examiner has never been exposed to such unusual responses and would be wrong footed. So the second more serious issue we face is how to “teach the examiners” what is the valid Hindu response and to what extent does this response reconcile religions with rationality. It is indeed a tall order. We are hoping to have a one-day seminar on Hinduism for RE teachers in England and Wales in the near future and would strongly recommend that the examiners from the examining boards attend. Most of the publications in this field are Abrahamically oriented and thus very limited. Once this weakness is addressed we hope to have more than 43 percent of our candidates gaining A grade in Religious Studies. Surely they must! These candidates are able to offer a far more comprehensive response (covering both the Abrahamic and Indian religions) to philosophic questions asked of all religions.

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