The uneven quality of Sekolah Agama Rakyat (SAR), or people's religious schools, has given the government an opportunity to go on a purge of these schools starting with the withdrawal of a federal grant since last October, said a Muslim educationist today.

The chairperson of Pusat Pendidikan SRI-SMI Bhd, or Musleh, Megat Mohd Amin Megat Mohd Nor said SARs nationwide are using their respective syllabuses and management style which often result in an inefficient school system.

Musleh is a private organisation which administers a number of religious schools nationwide.

"The government tried to streamline the SAR system but there was a lot of resistance from these schools," he lamented.

He explained that many SARs are also very focused with Islamic studies that 80 percent or more of the curriculum is allocated for religious subjects while the remaining is for academic subjects such as Mathematics and Science.

Megat Mohd Amin said graduates from such SARs will have little option but to become Islamic teachers and scholars.

However, he said some SARs which realised that they should not limit the future prospects of students chose to adopt a more balanced curriculum between academic and religious studies.

Choice of courses

For instance, he said, the syllabus of the 18 religious schools run by Musleh three of which are SAR is divided into 45 percent of academic studies and 55 percent of religious studies.

"Our students also sit for government examinations so they can always further their studies in whatever field they like later," he said.

But that is not the case with most of the SARs, where their students can only further their studies in Islam-related fields in countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan later.

There are 260 SARs nationwide with 66,000 students in secondary level and 8,000 pupils in primary.

These religious schools became the centre of controversy when the government stopped an annual federal grant ranging from RM60 to RM150 per student last October. The grant is to help in maintenance. Even with the grant, the schools were already finding difficulty in paying their teachers' salaries and meeting other expenses.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had claimed that students in these schools were taught to hate the government by the opposition, referring to PAS.

He also said he wanted to overhaul the education system before his retirement in October to, among others, encourage Muslims to embrace both religious and worldly pursuits.

Most of these religious schools are believed to have evolved from traditional schools run by PAS supporters to provide informal education mainly in rural areas since Independence.

Overwhelming response

Last month, the government invited SAR students to transfer to national schools which are regulated by the Education Ministry and have a 70:30 percent mixture of academic and religious subjects.

Yesterday, Education Minister Musa Mohamad said the response to that invitation was overwhelming, adding that 1,000 SAR students in Kedah and another 2,000 in Johor have enrolled themselves into national schools.

Megat Mohd Amin, however, said today there would not be a drastic change in the number of students who would opt for a transfer at least for another year.

He said the government should reflect on why many parents are still not convinced about the atmosphere and environment to learn religion in national schools.

"The parents are not happy with the level of Islamic knowledge in national schools. The teachers there are also less committed to the students," he said.

He said that if the government really wanted to help the schools, they must be more sincere by having discussion with the SARs first.

"If they want to help the schools, everybody will be happy. But it is not right for some leaders to just cut the grant and threaten to shut down the schools which they claim are pro-opposition," he said.