Muslims set up education committee

Muslims set up education committee

SINGAPORE (AP): A group of Muslim clerics and academics in Singapore have set up a committee to address how the religion's schools can be made exempt from a government-proposed system of compulsory education, a news report said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong suggested last October that the nation's schools -- including the madrasahs, or Muslim schools -- be required to follow a set curriculum.

The proposal has outraged Singapore's Muslim community, who see it as a threat to the existence of the madrasahs, which teach Islam and Arabic, sometimes instead of more technical subjects.

The Muslim committee, led by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, will discuss ways of implementing the proposed curriculum into the madrasah education system without compromising its religious and cultural teachings, the report in Singapore's Sunday Times said.

Singapore is home to 440,000 Muslims, the majority of them ethnic Malays. They make up about 15 percent of the population.