Moral Degeneration of Students & Africanised Christian-Muslim Chaplaincy Curriculum: Learner-Moral-Shaping Challenges for the Education Institutions in Uganda

The study examined the extent to which Christian and Muslim chaplaincy philosophies can be Africanised, amalgamated, and implemented to minimise moral degeneration among learners in academic institutions in Uganda. To unearth the influencers of moral decadence among students, historical literary analysis and archival research methods that investigate past and contemporary voices were relied on. Findings indicate that due to poor family upbringing and household economic poverty, many teenagers have adopted lifestyles that are risky and beyond their financial means. In the process of navigating life, many get involved in drug abuse, alcoholism, consumption of pornography, sexual indulgences, hooliganisms, fierce strikes, and gambling businesses. Immoral lifestyles have resulted in: teenage marriages, abortions, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, drug addiction, mental health illnesses, premature death, and criminality. In Uganda, 1000 teenage pregnancies are recorded by public health institutions every day. To make matters worse, drug and substance abuse among teenagers stands at 70.1 percent. Young people involved in drugs and substance abuse have been diagnosed with: heart diseases, liver cirrhosis, mouth and throat cancer, alcohol poisoning, depression and stress disorders, and suicidal thoughts. Many of them are associated with poor academic performance, memory loss problems, intentional injuries, school absenteeism, sexual violence, and legal arrests for assaulting others while under the influence of drugs. At the national referral psychiatric hospital in Uganda, records show that every week, 100 teenagers are diagnosed with mental illness. To minimise moral decadence challenges among students, it is recommended that Senior Women and Senior Men teachers tasked with the roles of offering counselling services to learners are theologically trained in Africanised Christian-Muslim ethics, well remunerated, and elevated to serve as the overall school chaplains whose duty would be to handle challenging child moral shaping situations that may not be managed by classroom teachers.