The dynamics of religious and spiritual values in Ethiopian modern education: trends, prospects, and threats

One of the purposes of this theoretical article was to investigate trends of legitimate integration and disintegration of Ethiopian religious-spiritual values and modern education at different eras. Furthermore, the study attempted to review the prospects and threats of modern education secularity and non-secularity regarding religious and spiritual values. The study employed an integrative literature review methodology. Different empirical works at the international and local levels and lived experiences of the researcher were used as secondary and primary sources of data respectively. The secondary data sources were selected purposively based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The study employed thematic analysis using pre-existing themes like trends, prospects, threats and time as unit of analysis. The analysis disclosed a trend of legitimate amalgamation and separation of Ethiopian indigenous religious-spiritual values and its modern education at different periods as a function of different factors. Currently, Ethiopian modern education and its religious-spiritual values are legitimately divorced. The findings also revealed that there are different prospects and threats if Ethiopian indigenous spiritual and religious values and modern education are legitimately blended or unblended. The findings are novel because they could add a new insight about educational secularism to the existing literature and have practical policy implications.