Islamic Education Teachers Lack of Religious Knowledge

PPIM.UINJKT.AC.ID – Dyah Salsabil, an Islamic education teacher from West Bandung Religious Affairs Office, revealed a surprising finding about the competence of teachers who taught religious modules, saying that many of them were lacking religious knowledge.

“There are many religious education teachers who don’t have enough competence in religious understanding. Some of them tend to be exclusive and always think they are right. As the consequences, they can easily judge that other views that are different with them are bid’ah [heresy],” Dyah said on Friday (25/9).

She was speaking in a virtual seminar series of #ModerasiBeragama (Religious Moderation) themed “Religious Moderation in Islamic Education”, that was organized by the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) of the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta through Convey Indonesia program.

Dyah said that could happen because the curriculum at schools were not enough to accommodate the concept of diversity. For example, the concept of qunut prayer mentioned in the text books still sparked debates among students, because many of them did not practice it when praying.

“Curriculum on the textbooks should introduce the concept of diversity and accommodate all different understandings,” Dyah said.

Besides curriculum, another factor would be the teaching methods, which were mostly still exclusives and dogmatic, and only covered about the rituals. For example, in teaching about how to pray, the teachers only focused on the technicalities and the readings. They did not explain about the benefits of prayer and the implementations. They only taught students about sins, hell, and heaven, but did not teach about hablumminallah (relationship with God) and hablumminannaas (relationship among human beings).

Dyah also said that support from the society, parents and schools was another challenge in spreading the religious moderation. Different perspectives should be advocated by communication and dialogues.

Therefore, in a bid to produce moderate religious teachers, there should be a good and sustainable collaboration. “We can start by improving the curriculum, then recruiting teachers who have competence in religious understanding and national knowledge. In addition, there should be some sustainable improvements towards the guidelines for teachers about the methodologies and Islamic knowledge,” said the doctoral candidate of Religious Studies of UIN Sunan Gunung Djati, Bandung.

Dyah also mentioned several points related to the importance of religious moderation. First, Indonesia was a multicultural country, thus diversity was supposed to be a sunatullah and a blessing. Second, technology and media had become more accessible for everyone. It was worrying to see that students could freely seek information from invalid sources if they were not satisfied with what their teacher taught at schools. As the consequences, they could learn Islam partially and be indoctrinated by radical thinking. Third, Islamic teaching should be based on the concepts of friendliness, tolerance and respect for diversity.

The virtual seminar on Religious Moderation is held every Friday via “Convey Indonesia” and “PPIM UIN Jakarta” official Youtube channels. The discussion, moderated by Convey Indonesian Team Leader Jamhari Makruf, also presented other speakers, such as Tb. Ace Hasan Syadzily, deputy chairman of House of Representatives Commission VIII and Mahnan Marbawi (Chairman of the Indonesian Islamic Education Teachers Association).

Writer: Herda Maulida

Editor: M. Nida Fadlan