Concern as Academic Pressure Hinders Faith Formation among School-going Children in South Africa

Johannesburg, 09 August, 2025 / 8:29 PM

The Liaison Bishop for Youth at the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) has expressed concern that the overemphasis on academic performance in South Africa’s education system is hindering the formation of school-going children and keeping them away from the Church.

In a video interview published by SACBC on Wednesday, August 6, Bishop Siphiwo Devilliers Paul Vanqa says the excessive academic pressure requiring learners to attend school even on weekends is hampering the Church’s efforts to offer children ongoing formation.

“This is a very painful situation we find ourselves in, as the leadership of the Church, as parents, and as community leaders,” Bishop Vanqa said.

He added, “Our children spend so much time in school that they’re not given the opportunity to realize they can have a connection between God and their own lives.”

“God has been cut out,” says the 70-year-old member of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (SAC) warning that the focus is only about success “without any real attention to the formation of the whole person.”

The lack of spiritual foundation necessary for a holistic life, Bishop Vanqa the Local Ordinary of South Africa’s Catholic Diocese of Queenstown said, is pushing the youth to lose the “sense of humanity and foresight.”

He added that young people “have lost their divinity as well, because they are not taught anything like spirituality or catechism as it used to happen in the past.”

The SACBC member noted that the context has changed to the extent that some teachers only focus on “filling up their classes,” keeping children there “sometimes just to collect fees, without planting any seeds of faith in them.”

“Our children are suffering because of this, and it doesn’t help us much as a Church, because when they lose that spiritual connection at home, and then don’t receive it at school either, we are left with a serious gap,” he stated, recalling how teachers taught children how to pray in the past in schools.

He said, “We were taught to pray at school, but today, that is often not the case, many teachers do not engage in prayer at all.”

The South African Catholic leader, who began his Episcopal ministry in May 2021, observed that even in some Catholic schools these days, “you’ll find there's no Angelus, no morning prayer, because the government seems to be phasing that kind of thing out.”

For him, the lack of space for pastoral education and prayer in schools is “destroying the faith of our youth,” and urgent steps should be taken to address the situation.

“We need to do something about it, even if on a small scale, but we've got to begin to do something,” he said, and went on to share some of the steps the Church could adopt to support the formation of children amid the imminent challenges.

Citing his Episcopal See where they did not wait for weekends to offer Catechism classes, Bishop Vanqa said they allowed children to be in every Friday to be brought in for an hour of catechism in the Cathedral and in the churches.

In some Parishes, he said, they had to urge anyone presenting a child for the sacrament of Baptism or Confirmation, to be part of the catechesis in a bid to encourage parental involvement in recognition of their role in the formation of children at home.