Muhammadiyah launches book

Muhammadiyah launches book

YOGYAKARTA: In a bid to help accelerate democratization in
Indonesia, the country's second largest Muslim organization,
Muhammadiyah, launched on Thursday a civics textbook.

The book, titled Civic Education, will be mandatory for
students at Muhammadiyah universities across the nation. It was
launched by Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif here.

The head of Muhammadiyah's education and research body,
Zamroni, said the book would fill the gap in civic education for
university students that was created when the government scrapped
in 1999 the Pancasila state ideology course, which had been
compulsory for new students.

One of the book's writers, Said Tuhuleley, said the textbook
presented students with a dynamic learning process that would
encourage them to uphold democratic values.

It took the writers three years to complete the textbook,
during which time they held a series of workshops and conducted
comparative studies to get input from experts in Indonesia and
overseas. -- JP