Compulsory school scheme tests Singapore's racial harmony

By Endy M. Bayuni

SINGAPORE (JP): Each year, some 500 Singaporean children are enrolled at madrasah, the Islamic religious schools, by Muslim parents who choose to opt out of the free education system managed by the government.

Madrasah Al Junied Al-Islamiyah, which charges parents tuition fees, even turns away students every year because it does not have enough places to accommodate everyone.

"Madrasah remains a popular option for many Muslim parents," said Syed Abdillah bin Ahmad AlJufri, the principal of one of six madrasah in Singapore.

Some parents choose madrasah primarily because they teach mostly religious subjects, and only a few selected secular subjects such as mathematics, natural science and English. Arabic is the medium used in teaching and learning, but children are also taught their mother tongue, Malay.

In Singapore's increasingly material and competitive society, a minority of Malay Muslim parents still opt to send their children to religious schools, even if it costs more, and even if statistics show that madrasah graduates do not perform academically as well as mainstream graduates in college.

Some parents apparently have priorities other than material world gain in raising their children.

That option may soon be gone if the Singaporean government goes ahead with its plan to introduce compulsory education, a move which would require all parents to send their children, at least in the first four years of primary school, to mainstream schools.

The scheme will affect the Muslim community, but not the entire 700,000 or 800,000 Malay Muslims who make up the second largest race in the predominantly Chinese Singapore.

The number of Muslim families who send their children to madrasah is small compared to those who send them to mainstream schools. For every Muslim child enrolled at madrasah each year, there are nine others enrolled at the secular state schools.

Although a "significant minority" as one Singapore official puts it, they still count in the island state, or as Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong says, "Every Singaporean Matters".

Explaining the rationale behind the proposal, Minister of Education Rear Adm. (ret) Teo Chee Hean says: "Firstly, it is important for all of them to have a firm foundation in education, in acquiring the skills necessary.

"Secondly, it is important that students have a common experience in national schools."

In this era of globalization, multiracial Singapore needed to build strong national bonds among its people, Teo said. "We don't want to become lost souls."

Because it affects a small segment of the minority Malay Muslims, the debate over compulsory education has not reached national prominence. The Muslim community, however, is divided on whether to support or oppose the scheme.

A study commissioned by the Prime Minister to determine the performance of madrasah graduates underpins the government's concern.

According to preliminary findings, reported in the local media in September, Malays who graduated from mainstream schools are doing much better than those from Islamic religious schools.

Only 35 percent of Malay children who attended madrasah made it to the O-level examinations in 1998, compared to 60 percent among Malays who went to mainstream primary schools.

In a society which strongly believes in meritocracy, many Singaporeans are concerned that madrasah students will not be able to cope with the increasingly fierce competition later in their life.

But a Muslim leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, dismissed the study as irrelevant, saying some parents had other priorities for their children besides academic excellence.

Madrasah places emphasis on religious education, and less on secular subjects. "You can't compare an orange with an apple," he said.

At Madrasah Al-Junied, for example, most of the pupils are groomed to be enrolled at the prestigious Al Azhar University in Cairo. Some are destined to become religious teachers when they return.

The government is treading carefully over a politically sensitive issue and has promised that the scheme will not be imposed without the support of the Muslim community.

"We worry about them because they don't do well in the alternative routes they choose. If that is happening in large numbers and then when they grow up, we have a social problem," Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.

He denied, however, that Muslim parents would be deprived of their choice under compulsory education, saying that the scheme would only be applied for the first four years -- or six as the case may be -- of primary school.

"Beyond that you have a choice of where you want to go. But in this (primary education) segment you have to go to state schools," Lee said.

The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS), which administers Singapore's six madrasah with combined students of about 4,000, has been gathering the opinions of the Muslim community on the issue.

"We're drafting a position paper with various alternative proposals," MUIS' public affairs manager Zakaria Buang said.

He declined to go into detail on the options, saying that the paper would be presented and debated in parliament in June.

"Essentially, they (the Malay Muslim community) want the existence of madrasah's retained, but in what format is something we still have to discuss," Zakaria said.

The six madrasah in Singapore have also been running part-time classes for Muslim children who attend mainstream schools, as have the dozens of mosques in residential apartment complexes.

Singapore's mainstream schools do not run religious classes, although they provide moral education as a subject.

How this subject is taught varies from one school to another. While complying with government curriculum guidelines, a schools have almost complete autonomy in running themselves.

At Yio Chu Kang Primary School on Hougang St., for example, moral education classes involve sending pupils to do community work, ranging from cleaning schools and neighborhoods, to raising funds for the local community.

Yio Chu Kang principle Toh Boon Keng says there is no difference in terms of the academic achievements of the pupils of the three major races at her school.

The old stereotype of Malays being lazy and underachievers does not apply at Yio Chu Kang.

"We get our share of difficult Chinese pupils. In fact, my top pupils have been Malays these last two years," Toh said.

Malay Muslims make up about 30 percent of her 1,800 pupils and the school has one of the highest Malay participation rates in the country.

The main problem in wooing Malay Muslim parents to send their children to mainstream schools is the absence of religious classes. This will likely be the main sticking point because state schools are not permitted to run religious classes.

"We're a secular state and a secular school," Toh said when asked why her school does not run religious classes.

One solution being envisaged by many people is to organize even more part-time madrasah classes for children who go to mainstream schools.

This has been the practice of most Malay Muslim parents who want their children to benefit from the state education system but at the same time getting the benefit of madrasah.

"I rarely see my daughter nowadays because she goes to madrasah on Sunday," said Sumardi Ali, an executive of the Mendaki Foundation.

His daughter is top of the class at the state school. "I'm very proud. It proves that Malays can excel," Sumardi said.

Since its establishment in 1982, Mendaki -- a Malay word meaning to climb -- has strived to promote excellence among Malays Muslim in all fields, particularly in education.

Sumardi, who sits on the government-established compulsory education committee to look into the matter, said the foundation had not taken any position on the matter, preferring to let the community discuss the matter extensively.

From the debate, however, he sensed that the majority of the community supported the compulsory education scheme.

"But since every Singaporean matters, then, even the smallest minority should be heard," Sumardi said, adding that he believed there would be a "win-win solution" eventually.

Mendaki takes pride in its success in promoting the education level of the Malay Muslim community. More and more Malays now complete their secondary education, and more of them go on to higher education than was the case was in early 1980s.

"Meritocracy is not a problem for us," Sumardi said, citing the many types of progress Malay Muslims have made in education and in the world of commerce.

While he does not think the compulsory education debate will upset racial harmony in Singapore, he cautions against treating the issue lightly. "Race relations are not something you take for granted. You have to make the effort to ensure harmony."