Religion in school: Keng Yaik spoke for silent majority

theSun 5 May 2005 | GERAKAN president Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik is indeed a very courageous man to have spoken out against what he termed excessive presence of religion in national schools.

He should be congratulated for articulating the concern of many Malaysians, non-Muslims as well as Muslims, who do not have the nerve or the moral fibre to speak up.

These Malaysians know only too well that for unreasonableness to triumph, it is only necessary for reasonable people to do nothing. They view with concern the growing presence of Islam in school but they will not speak up -- "it's too much trouble" -- preferring, instead, to take the expensive recourse of sending their children to private schools.

The result is less than 10% of the pupils in national primary schools today are non-bumiputras.

This has rendered useless the national schools as crucibles of national unity and nurseries of the future Malaysian race. This has also put into jeopardy the national effort to gradually reduce racial polarisation in the nation.

By berlebihan or excessiveness, Keng Yaik meant that the teaching of the Islamic religion has gone beyond the agama classes where, as it should be, non-Muslim pupils are excluded.

He, like everyone else, has no complaint against the agama classes which have been an integral part of the national school curriculum and the national education policy. These classes are not the aspect of national schools that are deterring non-Malays from enrolling their children there.

What he spoke out against, and in doing so articulating the feelings of the silent majority, was that elements of the religion have seeped into many aspects of life in national schools.

Among the complaints are the numerous supplications or doa read during school assemblies or piped into the classrooms, doa before class and doa after class, Quran reading at school functions or piped into the classrooms, and insistence that only certain types of uniforms be worn on occasions.

All are aware that these are not among the practices recommended by national educational policy covering primary schools but are instituted by individual headmasters who are goaded on by overzealous religious teachers.

Thus, the general complaint now is that Islam is gradually pervading life at many national schools.

This must be rolled back if national schools are to be truly national again, to be the school of first choice of all races, and not allowed to become a version of the sekolah agama rakyat (SAR) which has been closed by the government.

The government must ever be vigilant against religious zealots out to advance their agenda to erode the secular nature of the schools and the country.

School administrations, headmasters and teachers should heed the advice of Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak that they should not go overboard where religion is concerned.

He said most school events should be agreeable and acceptable to the pupils of all faith and race and which they should not feel uneasy about attending.

Attendance at other events like the Quran reading competition or celebrations related to Maal Hijrah or the Prophet Muhammad's birthday should be left entirely to the non-Muslim pupils to decide.

As Najib said, Keng Yaik meant well and his speaking out should be seen as the action of a nationalist.


Updated: 02:50PM Thu, 05 May 2005