In recent years, schools and education authorities worldwide have been paying increased attention to issues surrounding diversity and religious tolerance. Tolerance constitutes one of the most important preconditions for social justice, fairness and peaceful coexistence. Hence, the authors of this article decided to develop an instrument measuring the degree and nature of religious tolerance among student teachers. It is not this article’s purpose to enter into a discussion about how to actually resolve religious, cultural and political conflict, but merely to embark on the process of developing an instrument to measure the degree of religious tolerance among teachers and student teachers.Religious intolerance is increasingly viewed as problematic, and it appears that education has been assigned the role of inculcating religious tolerance in young people. Teachers are expected to be able to inculcate in their students the respect, empathy, critical thinking and acceptance of differences among people associated with the notion of tolerance. To be able to do this, teachers have to possess the traits of a tolerant person.Whether teachers are indeed tolerant in practice depends on the extent to which they have mastered the capacity to be tolerant. This article reports on a study that culminated in the construction of a questionnaire for measuring the degree to which students on the threshold of entering the teaching profession displayed a tolerant attitude.The construction of the questionnaire was based on a theoretical study of tolerance and intolerance. The questionnaire was then applied in three different countries (South Africa, the Netherlands and India). Factor analyses were performed on the data to establish the validity of the instrument.The first round of application revealed a number of shortcomings in the questionnaire. The study therefore recommends a revision of the questionnaire. Among other things, the factoral structure and the reliability of some of the sub-scales require further attention. The study ascribes the lower than expected explanation of variance in the data set to the cultural differences existing among the different groups of respondents in the three countries.The article closes by drawing a conclusion regarding the degree of religious tolerance among the respondents who participated in this first round of application of the questionnaire.Keywords: Religious tolerance; Education; Student teachers; Questionnaire

The South African-Dutch research group responsible for this article started its activities in 2012 by looking at religious tolerance (in education) as a means of addressing the tendency for religious intolerance, extremism and fundamentalism. While (teaching in) tolerance seemed to be a promising way to counter religious intolerable behaviour, some shortcomings also became apparent. For example, the concept of tolerance includes an aspect of passivity towards others who adhere to another religion. The concept also does not appear to be able to respond to attitudes and values such as respect, human rights and diversity. Accurate investigation of this problem, both conceptually and empirically, led to the understanding that hospitality is a concept that embodies more active adaptation to those who are different (including religious). Hospitality, therefore, seems to be a more promising concept than tolerance for reducing religious tension between individuals and groups. The inner contradiction discovered by Derrida in the notion of hospitality does not detract from the concept of being defined from a Biblical point of view. Hospitality can also be taught to young people. Although there are no formal provisions for hospitality in the national curricula, an analysis of the Dutch and South African national curricula shows that there is room for hospitality education.

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The process of global modernization has reached a new phase. In many parts of the world, societies have become so complex that the logic that characterized first modernity no longer works. Simultaneously, societies are confronted by huge and complex side effects of modern rationality, such as climate change, migration influx, global inequality, and waning confidence in the nation-state. Consequently, we are entering an age of reflexive modernity. In our view, this new social configuration has important consequences for what Christian higher education can contribute to the education of new professionals. In this article, we will reflect on the way in which three collaborating Christian universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands are searching for answers on the challenges of our time. We propose, firstly, that they should give more attention to the relational formation of professionals than before. These professionals have to bridge the gap between professional and client, system and lifeworld, professionalism and personality, and professionalism and spirituality. Secondly, the professionals trained at Christian institutions of higher education should develop a strong professional ethos that allows them to act swiftly and efficiently in complex situations. In order to develop such an ethos, moral traditions are indispensable. Although the new social configuration does not seem to be very favorable for Christian higher education, on closer inspection it brings new opportunities.

Managing education during the pandemic in the Netherlands and South Africa: A comparative study. Optimism has reigned supreme for a long time regarding the potential of education (schooling) to address the many societal ailments that humankind has had to deal with. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 shifted all such aspirations to the back-burner. Now, after just more than a year after the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the question can be raised whether those who managed the pandemic in the educational context followed the correct policies and instituted the correct (ethical, moral) measures in combatting the pandemic. This comparison between the situation in the Netherlands and South Africa reveals that although the role-players in both countries had a good understanding of the situation and of their duties in such conditions, they tended to treat education as just another facet of society, thereby demonstrating a lack of empathy with the unique demands of education (schooling).Contribution: In this article, the authors investigate the governance performance of two different countries during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic concerning education and judge that performance based on a Biblically driven ethical-moral-pedagogical framework.