Sa'eda Buang

By using educational inquiry and multiple intelligences perspectives, this paper argues that the importance of compassion in the teaching of National Education cannot be underestimated. Various techniques to infuse compassion in Malay language lessons are incorporated for readers’ consideration.

Parokial bererti 'skop pandangan yang sempit'. 1 Bagaimanakah memanusiawi parokial sedangkan parokial itu tersangat relatif dan sering tersembunyi di sebalik bayangan semangat 'kekitaan' dan kedaerahan yang rencam? Bagaimanakah Masuri memandang dan mengulit parokial? Soalan yang lebih penting: adakah tugas memanusiawi parokial pernah dipikul oleh Masuri? Harapan menjawab soalan-soalan sedemikian menjadi tunjang perbincangan kami. Bersandarkan karya-karya Masuri, terutama prosanya, soalan-soalan ini akan dijawab dengan memberi fokus pada sudut kemanusiaan untuk melihat bagaimana Masuri mentakrif, menaakul dan memanusiawi parokial yang berlaku di dalam diri dan di sekelilingnya.

It has been documented, albeit scarcely, that the presence of Muslim religious education precedes other forms of educational institutions in early Singapore. The madrasah, and its predecessors like the Quran school, has played an important part in the socio-religious life of Muslims in Singapore. In the mid 1990s and thereafter, the madrasah in Singapore was thrown into the limelight when the plan to impose Compulsory Education (CE) was mooted by the government and was debated extensively by many interest groups – madrasah fraternity, Muslim organizations, educationists, interested individuals, and politicians. To the Muslim community at large, the fear that the madrasah will be abolished under the CE legislation seemed real and, therefore, the concerted and frantic efforts by the community to defend the educational institution via varied channels of discourses, individually or collectively.

During the debate, the strengths and weaknesses of the madrasah were measured in relation to nation building, national identity, and socio-economic and technological developments. Central to these discourses is the recurring issue of the madrasah curriculum as the locus of the madrasah’s very existence. What has the madrasah curriculum been offering to the Muslim community such that it is worth defending? What is the philosophy of madrasah education and, more importantly, is it still relevant to the dynamism and vigorous demands of post-modern and urban Singapore?

Taken from the angle of curriculum enquiry, this thesis hopes to provide answers to these questions by examining the essence and nature of the curriculum of the present-day full-time madrasahs, which is the main concern of our study. But the madrasah, in its present form, does not occur in a vacuum. It has evolved through phases of socio-historical continuum, from pre-Independence to the present, and has displayed a pedagogy of social conservatism, hints of early internal religious and socio-educational reforms, and numerous changes impacted by state policies and socio-economic developments of the day. Such a socio-historical framework lends meaning and context to the present-day madrasah’s curriculum initiatives and responses to externally-induced reforms. It forms an important part of our research. As the title of our thesis suggests, the madrasah has evolved and is still evolving. That madrasah curriculum is a social reality and a social construct, which is both impacting and impacted by social factors and social situations, including socioeconomic changes, of which it is a part, is the challenge to be proven by this thesis.

Kertas ini membincangkan secara kritis pelbagai strategi yang diambil oleh para penulis Singapura untuk menyemarakkan kembali dunia sastera Melayu di Singapura pasca1957. Pengarang kertas ini mengutarakan beberapa penulis awal – karya, pemikiran dan disiplin mereka – sebagai contoh teladan bagi para penulis muda dan yang sedang meningkat.

The issue of curriculum content of madrasahs in Singapore has been receiving public and national leaders’ attention since the 1980s as a result of their less than satisfactory academic performance compared to that of national schools in the annual national examinations. There has been a growing concern over the madrasah’s peripheral position in the overall scheme of national development and economic progress. An investigation of the tradition of curriculum inquiry forms the major focus of this chapter. The discussion looks at the madrasah curriculum at both philosophical and operational levels and the multifarious challenges the institution faced while ensuring its relevance in the ever-changing educational landscape of Singapore.

This paper discusses the concept and structures of teacher education according to the views of selected early Islamic scholars such as Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), al-Ghazali (1058-1111), Ibn Sina (980-1037), Ibn Miskawayh (936-1030), and Al-Jahizh (776-869). The second part of the paper discusses Singapore’s experience in reformulating teacher education based on data accrued from 405 madrasah students, 55 religious teachers and 50 parents.

This special issue of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is originally conceived in urgency to the current political and cultural situation. At the same time, it aims to move the discussions on Muslim education beyond the reactionary 9/11 responses to a more long-term, reconstructive task that invites scholars to redefine and engage in normative debates regarding the life world and futures of Muslim education – what educational forms and cultural shapes it should take and more importantly, what it may offer to cultures and nations.

Madrasah, a Muslim religious school, and pesantren, loosely defined as a Muslim boarding school, are amongst the many Muslim educational institutions that still exist today amidst the tides of challenges brought about by urbanization. In contrast, pondok, another informal religious boarding school, and Imam-Khatib (Teacher-Student) schools in Turkey, are experiencing a near demise (Hasan Langgulung & Che Noraini Hashim, 2005) or political obliteration (Soon-Yong Pak, 2004), respectively. Such differing positioning of Muslim educational institutions has been attributed to the interface with and impact of urbanization, amongst other key socio-politico-economic factors. In other words, urbanization has been perceived as a contributing factor to the decline of Muslim educational institutions, including the madrasah, and Muslim education in general. Yet, arguably, urbanization has accelerated the process of madrasah’s curriculum reformation, and strengthened madrasah’s position as the focal point of Muslim individuals’ quests for their personal equilibrium. Such complex interface between madrasah and urbanization, and its seemingly imponderable ironies will be the focus of this chapter. In a nutshell, this chapter proposes to review the challenges of madrasah and Muslim education in and around the process of urbanization and its responses and strategies in mitigating the impact of the interface. These strategies, such as the Islamization of knowledge, curriculum reformation, and the promotion of Muslim education for human and social capitals, in turn, will be critically analyzed. Case studies of Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey will be surveyed from its comparative socio-historical analysis rather than chronological perspective, to give an overview of the madrasah and Muslim educational system in those countries.