Research on Government Policies on Religious Education in SEAs

Religious education is a central part of religious community. It functions as a sole medium of transmission of religious knowledge and tradition for their survival and growth. A modern state said to be successfully integrating their citizens to the nation state if there is a sense of satisfaction from religious groups, due to state and religion mutual accommodation. The problems of modern states right now lies on whether they could negotiate and compromise with the religious groups, as in contesting each other interests and ideologies. While the worst case scenario if a state fails to accommodate, intolerant and radical movements would likely appeared as form of dissatisfaction from certain religious communities.

The research on government policies on religious education would like to capture the fact on whether religious education true to be an enabling factor for the rise of radical and intolerant Islamic movements, as well as allowing the spread of a perilous violent extremism ideology across Southeast Asia region.

Hence, CONVEY and researchers of PPIM UIN Jakarta was trying to seek at how Southeast Asian governments regulates religious community and religious education in their internal states. How exactly the state accommodate or control the mainstream religions and take care of religious education and its attributes including curriculum et cetera. Thus, what kind of role does the state and civil society organization play in creating an integrated citizens or ensuring social cohesion and accommodating inclusivity and equality that honor differences and diversity.

This research was conducted by PPIM UIN Jakarta in 2018 to seek through government policies on religious education scattered in six countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.