Exclusive Homeschooling May Spread Radicalism

JawaPos.com – The Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) of the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta revealed that homeschooling (HS) were prone to the spreading of radicalism. Flexible learning methods whilst putting the students  away from general values, and lack of supervision from the government, had paved the way for the exposure of radical religious understandings.

PPIM UIN Jakarta research coordinator Arif Subhan said that he did not mean to accuse that all HS were radical, but one thing for sure was that they always had a potential to spread radicalism. He cited his research showing that from a total of 56 HS in Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi), Bandung, Solo, Surabaya, Makassar, and Padang, five of them were indicated to had been exposed to radicalism. The five HS adopted exclusive Islamic teachings.

According to Education and Culture Ministry Regulation No. 129/2014, there were two definitions of HS in general. First was the HS in which parents took parts as teachers. Second was when the parents involved their children in HS communities and called certain teachers to come home to teach them. “[In choosing] HS, it depends on the needs of the parents, the children and its relation with the religion,” Arif said.

He explained that Islamic-based HS usually saw mothers as the main teachers for their children. They adopted and believed that the al-salaf al-shalih (salaf) education method was the most ideal for Muslims. They taught tauhid (the core of the Islamic faith and expresses the belief in Allah as the one and only God), Quran recitation, and calligraphy writing, the practices implemented in the era of Prophet Muhammad and his companions. The purpose of the teaching method was to teach students about strong akidah (creed and faith).

In the research, Arif divided Islamic-based HS into two typologies – inclusive Salafism and exclusive Salafism.

Inclusive Salafism introduced the students to the concept of diversity and taught them to be open-minded and to respect other people from different religious backgrounds. Such HS usually had non-Muslim students. In the study activities, inclusive-Salafism HS adopted a national curriculum, which included the subjects about Pancasila, civic education and Bahasa Indonesia. However, they believed that greeting non-Muslim people for their religious day, such as saying Merry Christmas to Christian friend, was prohibited in Islam. But they would be fine if other Muslim preferred to otherwise.

Exclusive-Salafism HS, meanwhile, only focused on their circle and was very close-minded. They refused to mingle with non-Muslim people and used national curriculum only as a formality. “Based on what we found in the field, they usually need three months to prepare for the national exam,” said Ida Rosyida, a researcher of PPIM UIN Jakarta who was conducting research about HS in Bandung, West Java.

She revealed that exclusive-Salafism HS usually carried out ideological motives. In Bandung, for example, a number of parents preferred to pay for HS for their children, because there were no schools or pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) whose vision and mission fit them. The parents said that they wanted their children to be taught by certain religious education teachers.

Source : Jawa Pos