KUCHING: The government has started registering private religious schools including ‘madrasah’ and Quran memorisation (tahfiz) with Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) earlier this year.
Education director-general Tan Sri Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof said, however, the ministry have yet to decide if these schools should follow the national syllabus or remain as it is.
“Although these schools are under the purview of the states’ respective Islamic religious councils, they have their own syllabus. They don’t teach students base on our national syllabus. There are suggestions that these schools should go under the ministry.
“We have yet to decide whether to place religious schools under one ministry or to maintain it as it is right now,” Khair said after visiting SK Merpati Jepang’s gotong-royong program today.
He further explained that there are religious schools that are registered with the ministry but those are private national schools, thus following the national co-curriculum.
He added that Jakim does not have any schools, so they organise and send teachers to teach fardhu in classes in state government schools and religious council offices.
“We will see how far is the registration process before we decide further. The exercise will also allow the government to monitor such schools so that they would follow the standard operating procedures set by the ministry,” said Khair.
