PETALING JAYA. PAS has rejected Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s claim that national schools have taken the character of Islamic schools.
The party’s secretary-general, Kota Bharu MP Takiyuddin Hassan, said the education ministry might have wrongly briefed the prime minister.
Contrary to Mahathir’s belief, he added, there had always been more emphasis on the natural sciences and technology than on Islamic studies even in the religious schools that are part of the national system.
“There is no such thing as national schools becoming Islamic schools,” he told FMT.
He said he had advised representatives of his party’s youth wing to meet Education Minister Maszlee Malik on the issue and to urge him to give Mahathir a clearer picture.
Another PAS leader, Rantau Panjang MP Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff, said there was in fact too little emphasis on Islamic studies in national schools.
She cited research done by the Parent Action Group for Education, which found that Islamic studies constituted, at the most, 15% of the curriculum.
“That means it is too low,” she said. “The percentage needs to be increased.”
However, PPBM supreme council member Tariq Ismail voiced his support for Mahathir’s statement, saying an observation of the attitudes of Muslims who have gone through the national school system would prove the prime minister right.
He alleged that there was evidence of what he called a “siege mentality” among those who are 35 years old and younger.
He attributed this to the “use of religion to control the majority” and said this had caused the “regression and retardation” of Muslim society.
“I have heard many tales and have seen through my children’s friends that an extremist and divisive mentality has seeped through these age groups,” he said.
He urged the government to develop an education system that would teach children to be independent in their thinking to be robust in their search for knowledge. - Mkini
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