Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin introduced on Tuesday a new curriculum that would promote peaceful Islamic teachings at all levels of education in Indonesia from elementary to senior high schools.
The new module, Lukman said, would allow students to learn about Islam as a religion that embraced diversity and promoted peace and tolerance.
He added that the curriculum was the government’s response to the need for religious teachings that promoted peace amid the increasing spread of violent and radical doctrines at academic institutions.
Lukman said that the module had been composed by selected religious teachers in Indonesia.
“The module is a training module for Islamic religious teachers so they share a similar paradigm on the teaching materials and methodology,” he said.
For his part, the Ministry’s Director for Islamic Education, Amin Haedari, said that the ministry had applied the module in several schools in Central Java, West Java, North Sumatra and North Sulawesi.
Amin also said that the ministry had deployed a number of teachers to introduce the new module. He said that the teachers had received training at Oxford University in the UK.
ABNA