CAIRO: The press conference held by the newly appointed minister of education, Ahmed Zaki Badr, and the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa last month to announce changes to the religious curricula in national schools has initiated a fresh round of controversy about the place of religion in education.
The religious curricula in Egyptian schools had been a subject of heated debates, and religion classes have regularly been a battleground for different social, religious and political groups.
Till the early 19th century, education in Egypt was purely religious, and the educational system consisted mainly of the traditional schools associated to mosques and churches. Under that system, both Muslim and Coptic scholars were responsible for the educational process.
But under Muhammad Ali, the Egyptian educational system took a different turn by drawing a distinction between secular and religious education. The “father of modern Egypt” aimed to provide qualified personnel who could serve in his civil administration and the army.
As a result, Egypt has had two parallel educational systems since then. First, there is the religious education offered by Al-Azhar; and second, there is the secular educational system offered by national schools.
However, such a division is a bit elusive since religious education was not eliminated from secular educational institutions altogether; rather, it was reduced to a single religion course each year.
Sectarian Tension
Sectarian tension in Egypt has been at the heart of the debate on religion in education.
Some people argue that teaching religion at Egyptian schools deepens the sectarian problem and breeds extremism.
“By teaching religion at school, we are creating a time bomb,” says Mamdouh Nakhla, a Coptic lawyer and activist, arguing that religion classes should be eliminated.
“The very fact that students are divided during the religion class has a negative effect on them,” he told Daily News Egypt.
Yet, this line of reasoning is usually attacked because in a country with an illiteracy rate of around 30 percent, it is difficult to expect parents to assume the role of teaching children about their religion.
However, Nakhla, who heads Al-Kalima Center for Human Rights, believes that teaching religion should be the responsibility of mosques and churches.
But here the question arises concerning who supervises what is taught by religious establishments if religion is taken out of school.
“Schools are the place where students learn moderate religious ideas,” says Enas Hosny, a religion teacher at an international school, explaining how supervision ensures that no radical ideas are being taught to children.
Zeinab Hassan, assistant professor of teaching methodologies at Ain Shams University, says that religion should continue to be part of national schools’ curriculum.
“Eliminating religion classes would give students the impression that it is unimportant,” she says, arguing that they should be “employed correctly” instead.
But still Hassan disapproves of the way religion is being taught at Egyptian schools. “Religion is about practice, not only studying information and reading texts. Students should learn how to truly apply their religion,” she explains.
Yet, some experts argue that the actual challenge is much broader than religion classes; the culture of schooling in Egypt itself is flawed as students view everything taught at school as merely subjects for exams.
Coptic grievances
Many Copts complain that the Muslim faith enters the curriculum of almost every subject.
The Arabic language curriculum of different grades, for instance, has usually been criticized for containing Quranic verses that students are required to study and sometimes memorize.
“Coptic students should not be obliged to study religious texts that they don’t believe in,” Nakhla told Daily News Egypt, complaining that since the mid-1950s every single Arabic language exam contained questions about Quranic texts.
Also, the social studies curriculum has been under fire because, according to critics, it highlights the Islamic civilization at the expense of Coptic history and culture.
“The history curriculum focuses only on the Islamic civilization. And even books of other subjects are full of Muslim names and photos of veiled women,” Nakhla says.
According to Johanna Pink of the University of Tuebingen, in 1999 Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies presented a proposal that aimed at making Egyptian education more minority-sensitive, but after fiery social and parliamentary debates, the project was turned down.
Hassan believes that the book content of subjects like Arabic and social studies needs to be reconsidered.
“Why don’t we add texts from the bible to the Arabic language books for instance?” she wondered, arguing that this would send a message to students about respecting other religions.
The Forgotten Subject
Despite all the fuss about religious curricula, for many people, it is the forgotten subject.
The fact that the score of the religion class exam does not count towards the students’ GPA encourages many people to ignore the subject.
Nermeen Hamdy, a school teacher and a mother of third and fifth graders, says that religion is being treated as an inferior subject.
“Religious activities at mosques are attracting more people because schools are not playing an actual role in the religious socialization process,” she told Daily News Egypt.
She believes that the spirit of religion should be highlighted more than the mere texts.
The way religion is being taught at national schools, according to Hamdy, kills children’s interest in the subject.
Both Hamdy and Hassan explain how parents at home play the major role in teaching youngsters about their religion.
There have been calls recently for counting the religion exam in the students’ GPA, but Hassan believes that such a move would change nothing.
“What really matters is making students feel the importance of religion in their lives,” she explains.
Hosny, however, believes that there are real problems with the religion curriculum itself.
“The curriculum consists of a series of unconnected lessons, with no common goal,” she explains, adding that substantial changes need to be made to the syllabus.
International Schools
The introduction of international schools, however, has added a new perspective to the row over religion in education in Egypt.
The fact that international schools do not abide by the exact formal curriculum gives them much freedom with regard to what they teach their students.
Such a marginal advantage has been used by a number of international schools with Islamic orientation.
Hosny believes that it is more about business and competition rather than convictions.
“Schools aim to fulfill the demands of an increasingly religious society,” she told Daily News Egypt. But still Hosny believes that students benefit from the extra religious curriculum regardless of the schools’ motives.
Government Manipulation?
“Education, and especially religious and value education, is a field that serves well to exemplify the role of religion in a state,” wrote Pink in his paper “Nationalism, Religion and the Muslim-Christian Relationship: Teaching Ethics and Values in Egyptian Schools.”
But is this the case in Egypt?
According to some views, the shape of religious education in Egypt does not reflect the state’s attitude towards religion; rather, it indicates the government’s attempt to appease an increasingly religious population.
During an interview with the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram in 2004, the former education minister Hussein Kamel Bahaa El-Din responded to a question about the reports regarding a reduction of the religious studies curriculum by saying that “no one dares to cut back the religious curriculum in Egypt.”
Reflecting an increasing popular piety, Al-Azhar educational system expanded more quickly than the general education system under president Mubarak.
The increase reveals more about the public mood rather than the state’s attitude, which has been characterized by a great level of caution towards the growing public religiosity.
“In the educational sector … government policy has tended towards marginalizing religion,” wrote Pink.
The fact that the government is treading a fine line between fulfilling popular religious demands and curbing Islamist tendencies that it considers threatening is clearly reflected in its concern about keeping religious establishments involved in any modification process to the religious studies curricula.
Islamic Education and Terrorism
One of the recent debates on religion in education revolves around the controversy over the connection between religious education and terrorism.
Since 9/11, there have been reports about the West attempting to interfere with religious education in the Muslim world. On different occasions, people talked about a possible reduction and/or change of religious curricula, but the Ministry of Education strongly denied such reports.
Although some observers, including Nakhla, believe that teaching religion at school breeds extremism, Hassan argues that it protects youngsters from radical ideas by offering them the right information about their faith.
“If students are taught their true religion at school, no one will be able to mislead them,” she told Daily News Egypt.
The recently announced reforms to religious curricula, which ended a long period of speculation, have generated mixed reactions, and much of the criticism focused on the newly introduced subject of “Ethical Education.”
“I’m against introducing such a subject,” says Hosny, who argues that ethics and values should be connected to religion.
A mother of a grade-schooler, Hassan explains how her son’s school organized an event called “No to Terrorism.” The event involved week-long activities that aimed at creating awareness about the dangers of extremism.
In her opinion, such events are what students really need, not modifications to the religious studies syllabi.
