Mufti: Vital to monitor private religious schools
KANGAR: Perlis Mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin said it was vital for the authorities to closely monitor the mushrooming number of private Islamic religious schools and the issues arising from such schools.
He said safety issues in such schools, such as fire, abuse, and student deaths, needed to be addressed to save the future of Muslim children.
He said there were many private Islamic religious schools, be they pondok schools or maahad tahfiz, which abided by the Education Ministry’s regulations and provided quality services in terms of the teachers’ qualification, syllabus and learning environment.
He said such schools registered under the ministry were generally well-managed academically and had proper facilities.
However, he said, a number of private Islamic schools had been set up based on individual and personal agendas, and failed to meet the ministry’s basic standards.
“The absence of committees to audit and manage the funds collected by the management would create opportunities for unscrupulous parties to use the money for personal gain.
“In the end, the owner lives in luxury with the well-wishers’ donations, while the school continues to operate in dilapidated conditions.
“To make things worse, in some cases, students have been sent to the streets to collect donations from public,” he said in a statement here today.
Earlier, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh expressed his deepest sympathies and condolences to the family of the 21 pupils and two wardens who perished in the fire which destroyed the school in Kampung Datuk Keramat, Kuala Lumpur before dawn today.