Allow Islamic, Quranic experts to develop curriculum ''Allow Islamic, Quranic experts to develop curriculum"
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), has been urged to allow only Islamic and Quranic experts to develop curriculums for Islam studies.
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A Founder member of Talim Ghana, a Muslim organisation, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, said currently, the practice was that educational experts who had no basic understanding of the Islamic religion were given the opportunity to develop a curriculum for Islamic and Quran studies without any recourse to experts in the sector.
“Islamic and Quran studies is a specialised area, I am not saying it’s sacrosanct but we must be committed to engage experts who have basic understanding in the sector to develop our curriculum.
We have a lot of Muslim scholars and Arabic experts in the country who can craft a curriculum for us.
” Dr Abdul-Hamid added.
Dr Abdul-Hamid, who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), was speaking at a seminar on Islamic teaching and learning in Accra yesterday.
The event was organised by Talim Ghana, a non-governmental organisation committed to improving the standard of living in various Muslim communities in the country.
It was attended by some Muslim leaders and Islam scholars who deliberated on developing a curriculum for the Muslim community in the country.
Engagement
Dr Abdul-Hamid further said, “If you want to know about Catholicism, ask a Catholic, I am not going to read a book on Catholicism written by a Presbyterian.
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If you want to know about Islam, ask a Muslim, so it is we Muslims who must own our curriculum and we must have a say in the development and review of our curriculum as the years go by”.
He also urged Muslim experts to be assertive and let the Ministry of Education know that there were experts within the Muslim community who had the capacity to develop a curriculum and also review it periodically.
Dr Abdul-Hamid said the Constitution had given every citizen the right to profess the religion of their choice and to manifest such belief.
“Therefore, the Muslim community must begin to engage with the government more thoughtfully and also give themselves a benchmark below which they would not accept,” he added.
Eternity of Quran
Even though it was believed that the Quran was eternal, Dr Abdul-Hamid said many Muslims sometimes misunderstood the eternity of the Quran.
He said the Quran was able to speak to every time and age and that there was enough technology in the Quran to answer questions of technological nature.
So as the world evolves, Dr Abdul-Hamid said crafters of Islamic curriculum should be able to find principles in the Quran to bring it in tune with modern times.
“So don’t be nervous when somebody says that the world has changed and , therefore, the Islamic curriculum must change with the times; don’t misunderstand the person to mean that Islam has changed.
It means that you can have enough principles in the Quran to answer the changes that are taking place in the world,” he said.
The President of the Nigerian Centre for Arabic Research, Nigeria, Professor Alkhidru Abdul Baaq Mohammed, also said there was the need to reconsider the relationship between Islam and modernity and develop curriculums that related to Muslim lives.
Also, he said the curriculum must be connected to the national identity so that students would know about their national history and not be introduced to a curriculum that could lead to alienation.