Teaching Islam to Children in Multicultural Singapore

Introduction

For many Singapore Muslims, secular education provided by the national schools is a legitimate and useful system that promises access to socioeconomic mobility. But it is a deficient system that must be completed with a supplementary Islamic education that offers the religious and cultural knowledge that is important to Muslims. Families enroll their children in both types of schooling in order for the latter to receive education that meets their needs as Singapore citizens and as Muslims.

Much is known about the full-time Islamic religious schools, the madrasah (e.g., Abdul Rahman 2006). Perhaps less well known is the equally important part-time Islamic education offered in the weekends by the mosques and other establishments. Both the madrasah and its part-time counterparts suffer from negative perceptions chief of which relate to the quality of such education and the impact that this education has on social cohesion in multicultural Singapore. In recent times, Islamic...