KLUANG: The Education Ministry (MoE) has rejected the Malaysian Youth Council’s (MBM) proposal that a special subject about other religions, apart from Islamic Studies, should be introduced in schools and higher education institutions.
Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik said that he was consistent with the ministry’s previous suggestion that every school and university should organise more cross-cultural programmes.
He said sharing each other’s cultures was more appropriate than learning other religions, as it was feared that it would cause more negative than positive effects.
“Recently when I was in Penang, I saw a national type Tamil school collaborating with a national religious secondary school and in Johor we have the Hidayah Islamic School that is very active in organising activities with other vernacular schools.
“Hence, we encourage these different schools to organise such cross-cultural programmes and usually these activities are more into celebrations, costumes and if possible, we should go further than that to understand each other’s cultures,” the MP for Simpang Renggam said today.
He said the most important thing was for students to appreciate interacting with other through co-curricular activities to strengthen unity, instead of studying other religions.
On Saturday, MBM president Jufitri Joha was reported as saying that the Islamic studies subject currently being taught in schools was good, but it only focused on one religion.
He said his proposal did not mean that the country would practice religious equality, but learning about various religions would “foster unity and promote religious sensitivity for different cultures. - Bernama
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