Editor,

RE: "Time to introduce philosophy in schools” (The New Times, January 21). Mr Gitura Mwaura may have a point in his analysis. But, he already said that we are having problems getting teachers for our kindergarten schools. Does he think it would be easier to find philosophy teachers for our schools at a price we can afford?

We don’t have the same resources as Ireland but there are many things we can do to help our children learn better, but we unfortunately have set priorities based not only on what is more important but also possible in our current situation.

Yes, the kindergarten project should continue for we have to start somewhere and eventually we will be able to gradually improve step by step; it would also be possible for us to adapt our teacher training programme to train qualified teachers for kindergarten schools.

I do not know how many years it would take us to train philosophy teachers enough for even 10 schools. A century? May be.

Seth

*****

You are backing a wrong and dead horse. Time for supremacy of philosophy and theology is long gone. Departments of both disciplines do not have pride of place in modern varsities and this is as it should be.

You are unlikely to find majors in the disciplines within the ranks of armies of scientists and technologists pushing the frontiers of knowledge in Silicon Valley and elsewhere – for good reason. Both are speculative and they tend to aim at "absolute truths” thus shutting off further discussion since "truths” will have been "arrived at”.

Contrary to the modern spirit of knowledge discovery that is founded on tentative knowledge, which is the basis of scientific method, modern science is dynamic and inquisitive, and definitely not closed. It has no dogma.

Let the Irish teach philosophy to their students if they wish; I bet it would be more beneficial if they mandated the teaching of statistics from an early age. The shift toward more exact sciences is irresistible.

Imboko Ndiranga