SARAWAK PKR has urged the state government to re-examine the religious university it plans to establish within the next five years.

The opposition party’s newly appointed state chairman Roland Engan said a religious university in Sarawak should be inclusive of all religions practised in the state, not just Muslims.

Responding to the Sarawak minister who oversees Islamic religious matters, Abdul Rahman Junaidi, who recently disclosed that the Sarawak Islamic Council (MIS) is proposing to set up an Islamic university within the next three to five years, Engan said the government ought to take into account the reality of the state’s multireligious, multiracial and multicultural make-up.

He said the university should have faculties for all various religious groups.

“Such a university will surely reflect the real colour of a multireligious, multi-ethnic, multidialectal and multicultural Sarawak.”

Engan said a university catering for just one religion will “never truly reflect Sarawak’s multiracial communities”.

He said it could even be detrimental to the future of the state.

“I agree with the importance of religious advancement as a contributing factor to Sarawak’s tireless effort in building a preferred peaceful livelihood, but no single religion should be given priority in such an important decision by any religious body or the Sarawak government”.

Such a “colourful university”, he added, should also be fully financed by the state government “so as to ensure the dream of the Sarawak premier and Pakatan Harapan to have free education for Sarawakians will materialise without further delay”.

Abdul Rahman, the state’s second deputy minister of utility and telecommunication, said the proposed university was to cater Islamic studies students who wish to further their studies at tertiary level.

He said currently, students who took Islamic studies in Forms 4 and 5 have no option of furthering their studies in the state after completing their secondary education.

They have to pursue their studies at institutions on the peninsula or overseas, such as Indonesia or even further to institutions in the Middle East, he said. – August 12, 2022.