Education Ministries 

Education Ministries Statement of Philosophy

The Seventh-day Adventist Church recognises that God, the Creator and Sustainer of the earth, and the entire universe, is the source of knowledge and wisdom. In His image, God created man perfect. Because of sin man lost his original state, and Christian education, by promoting faith in Christ, seeks to restore in man the image of his Maker, to nurture in man an intelligent dedication to the work of God on earth, and to develop in man a practical preparation for conscientious service to his fellowman.

Seventh-day Adventists believe that knowledge of this personal God can never be derived by human reason alone, but that God has communicated His nature, purposes, and plans through divine revelation. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God and contain a revelation of His will to men, and they constitute for the Church the only unerring rule of faith and practice. The Church membership accepts the gift of prophecy as manifested through special revelation to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the life and ministry of Ellen G. White. In this respect, Seventh-day Adventists accept divine revelation as the guiding principle in their philosophy of education. They believe that their teachers are servants of God and their students, children of God.

The church operates a school system to ensure that its youth may receive a balanced physical, mental, moral, social, spiritual, and vocational education in harmony with denominational standards and ideals with God as the Source of all moral value and truth. His revealed mind and will are the criteria for right and wrong. The stated interest of the Church is in the optimum development of the whole child for both this life and for the life hereafter.

Seventh-day Adventists conduct their own schools, elementary through university, for the purpose of transmitting to their children their own ideals, beliefs, attitudes, values, habits and customs. The government maintains a highly developed public school system for making citizens; but in addition to being patriotic, law-abiding citizens, Seventh-day Adventists want their children to be loyal, conscientious Christians. There is peculiar to the Church a body of knowledge, values, and ideals that must be transmitted to the younger generation for the Church to continue to exist. In this process, the Biblical principle of social transmission is recognised: “Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.” Joel 1:3.

A true knowledge of God, fellowship and companionship with Him in study and service, likeness to Him in character development are to be the source, the means, and the aim of Seventh-day Adventist education.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church desires through all its educational programs to help prepare the youth for effective citizenship on this earth and for rewarding citizenship in the new earth.

The educational program of the Church gives primary emphasis to character building and to the spiritual foundations in the lives of its children and youth.

Moreover, it makes abundant provision for the acquisition and interpretation of that which is appropriate from the store of common secular knowledge and skills for mental, social, vocational, and physical development. – Condense from the Inter-American Division Working Policy, 2018-2019, p. 295 and 296.