TAHFIZ schools want to introduce a sexual education module, but the funding isn’t there for the programme to be rolled out, said Dr Hamizah Mohd Hassan at a Projek Dialog conference on “Education: Visions for a New Malaysia” today.

“8 out of 10 teachers at tahfiz schools support sexual education and want to introduce our modules into our schools,” said the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) Reproductive Health chief.

Dr Hamizah, who designed the existing sexual education curriculum in Malaysian schools, said that the idea had been introduced earlier this year, before the change in government. However, the Education Ministry (MoE) was unwilling to give funds for the project.

“We drew up a plan for tahfiz schools, and the teachers wanted to do it, but when we showed the Education Ministry the cost, they threw it out,” said Dr Hamizah.

“This plan was only for certain tahfiz schools, to try to limit the cost, but the MoE still would not fund it”

However, she remains hopeful that, with a new government, new Education Minister Maszlee Malik could be willing to support the expansion to tahfiz schools.

Dr Hamizah suggested: “We will look and maybe try again with the new ministry to see if we could get the funding. Right now we have to rely on help from civil societies.”

Tahfiz schools have come under criticism recently after it was discovered that a teacher at a tahfiz school in Hulu Kelang performed oral sex on a 14-year-old student.

It has been historically difficult to implement national programmes on private tahfiz schools, particularly in areas sensitive to religion, but Dr Hamizah has said that the will is there from tahfiz schools to introduce sexual education.

Dr Hamizah also suggested that a limited budget was holding back the reach of sexual education programmes in Malaysia.

“Our biggest problem is budget, we can’t reach the people who aren’t in school or university,” she said.

Dr Hamizah said that her most significant goal for sexual education policy was to reach out to those who aren’t in schools, but with a limited budget they couldn’t form a programme to do so.

“People in schools are 10% less likely than those who are not in school to be sexually active,” she said, referring to survey data she had collated.

But she did say that she hoped that she would be given the budget to complete this outreach, as currently, the burden is falling civil societies to try to help these people who are currently given no sexual education. – July 25, 2018.