Singapore - As part of ongoing efforts to produce better madrasah students and ensure that they remain relevant, three out of the six Islamic religious schools will start offering, in phases, specialised curricula from 2009.
Under the Joint Madrasah System (JMS), Al-Irsyad will offer only primary education while Aljunied and Al-Arabiah will specialise in secondary education.
The changes to the madrasah system were announced by the Minister in Charge of Muslim Affairs, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, at the Hari Raya Get Together function at the Istana on Friday night.
The "new" Aljunied Madrasah will offer intensive religious education for students who are interested to pursue Islamic religious education at higher levels. But it will also have a hybrid curriculum providing equal emphasis on both religious and academic subjects.
Al-Arabiah, on the other hand, will provide greater emphasis to its "academic curriculum". Both madrasahs will also stop taking in primary students under the new system, which comes under the purview of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS).
Dr Yaacob, who is also the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, said the changes will enable the madrasah students to "enjoy an education system that is flexible enough to cater to their different aptitudes and abilities".
He added that the other three madrasahs — Al-Maarif, Alsagoff and Wak Tanjong — have been invited to participate in JMS.
Despite the streamlining, the madrasahs‘ primary function — to produce future religious leaders and teachers — will be maintained.
For its part, MUIS said the council would support the JMS through financial means as well as recruiting professionally trained teachers and qualified management teams.
MUIS president, Haji Mohd Alami Musa, referring to the changes, told TODAY: "It will be a big challenge but having worked with the madrasah leaders over the last few months, I‘m confident that they are truly fired up and dedicated in making their vision a reality."
Under the Compulsory Education Act, introduced in 2003, all Primary 6 madrasah students will need to take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) from next year. A madrasah that is not able to meet the PSLE benchmark — pegged at the average PSLE aggregate score of Malay pupils in the six lowest performing national schools — at least twice over a three-year block will not be able to accept Primary 1 students in the next three-year block.
To help these schools meet the PSLE requirement, MUIS is offering a special assistance package of $700,000 where madrasahs can offer learning programmes to their PSLE students and train their teachers in the academic subjects.
Madrasah leaders interviewed believe that change introduced under the JSM will not undermine the independence of these religious schools.
"While I am looking forward to the new system, I would like to stress that the status quo will remain, we are just enhancing the teaching standards," said Mr Mohamed Gazali Alistar, the general secretary of Madrasah Al-Arabiah. "Discussions for this programme took nearly a year, but I am hopeful through these changes, we would be able to recruit good teachers that will hopefully mean we will produce better students."
Mr Razak Lazim, chairman of Madrasah Al-Irsyad, said: "Of course, each madrasah has its own tradition, which I personally feel is important to preserve. But I suppose the real question is how we can preserve those identities while still moving forward education-wise."
Mr Atan Noor, chairman of the An-Nahdhah mosque, said: "With our island‘s quest to be a regional education hub, this new enhancements will ensure that the madrasahs will not be left behind in the race."
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com (29 Oktober 2007)
