CASES of abuse at tahfiz centres and incidents of delinquency involving pupils from religious schools have marred their reputation and created doubt on the value of these schools in society, said a proponent of Islamic education.

Penang Ikram’s education committee chairman Dr Abdul Halim Abdul Aziz said religious schools provide emphasis on religion and morality to the younger generation and also bring cultural diversity in the national education system.

“However, cases of abuse at these schools and incidents of delinquency have marred their reputation,” Halim said.

“In truth, religious schools can be a valuable addition to the national schooling system if managed well.”

Ikram runs a number of religious schools in the country, including Penang, and Halim was eager to address concerns of certain quarters that religious and vernacular schools could jeopardise national integration and unity.

“These schools should strive – with the encouragement of the Education Ministry – to instil Malaysian values and character in a society that is culturally and religiously diverse,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

“Unity is a big agenda that requires active support from all educational institutions.”

Challenges

However, he said, the danger to religious schools is the risk of being too isolated from non-religious-based schools, which would then lead to unnecessary gaps in society.

Halim said while he strongly supported the proposal to decentralise the national education system in order to give more leeway to individual schools to run their programmes, there is also a need to have more effective monitoring.

The risk of according too much autonomy to religious schools – as well as schools other than the national ones – was the danger that the schools could become breeding grounds for extreme ideologies, he said.

“Decentralisation is not good if the expected educational outcome does not have a strong Malaysian character and is not in line with national aspiration of harmony amongst diverse ethnic groups and religions.

“What’s worrying is if it leads to extremism,” he said.

Religious school pupils are often the subject of scrutiny when it comes to their behaviour, which adds a level of strain to school administrators, he said.

This was because society expects the schools to be the paragon of virtue, and hence it puts a high standard on the pupils’ conduct, said Halim.

“That is why any issue of discipline in religious schools gets the attention and coverage of the media.

“In general, pupils of religious schools are more disciplined and well behaved.

“However, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. This has created a negative perception towards religious schools.”

The question of imposing tighter regulations and closer monitoring on religious schools recently arose due to several sexual controversies involving tahfiz centres.

Last month, Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad ordered the closure of a tahfiz school in Kuala Lumpur after its principal was charged with sodomising at least nine boys studying at the centre.

In March, a 41-year-old man who volunteered at a tahfiz school in Kuantan was slapped with 38 charges of sexual assault and sodomy against 10 pupils and four months later, a 21-year-old tahfiz teacher in Taman Keramat Permai, Hulu Klang, was arrested for forcing a pupil to perform oral sex on him several times. – October 17, 2018.