Academic makes pitch for inclusive religious education

In the midst of an ongoing debate over whether state schools should teach Islam to Muslim students, a university lecturer has proposed a radical shake-up in the way religion itself is taught at Maltese schools. 

Francois Mifsud, a lecturer at the Department for Inclusion and Access to Learning within the Faculty of Education, will put forward to the authorities a plan that will replace the current dogmatic education of Roman Catholicism at schools with a new syllabus that will instead give students knowledge of different religions. 

“One of the challenges of education is multiculturalism; we live in a pluralistic and diverse culture and education must cater for this reality and prepare students to live in a multicultural society,” Mifsud told MaltaToday.

“Religious education is a crucial tool in this regard, as religion is a means of understanding other cultures. Religion education shouldn’t be about the usual catechesis that students learn at M.U.S.E.U.M. classes, but about helping students understand the phenomenology, history and anthropology of religion.” 

His plan is for religious education lessons to include both a top-down approach, where teachers will educate on the historical facts of different global religions, and a bottom-up approach, where students will be able to talk about and discuss their faith practices and experiences with each other in the classroom. 

“That will also help students realize that faith is about experience, and not just about following instructions and orders,” he said.

“If we want our students to be creative and critical people, then we must start by reformulating religious education.” 

Consequently, RE curricula will no longer be designed by the Curia, but by the government. Ethics classes, currently only available to students who do not sit for religion classes, will be extended to everyone. 

Mifsud said that his plan comes with several advantages – namely that it will keep the classroom united and intact during religion classes, allow students to expand their knowledge of different faiths, and act as an early preventive mechanism for fundamentalist ideology. 

“Education is not only about learning but also about the classroom community, which means that classes shouldn’t be split up when it comes to teaching religion,” he said.

“The current discussion [on Islamic education] is often irresponsible, with faith communities protecting their own interests instead of the interests of the classroom community.

“It will be less likely for a student to be respectful of people of different faiths if they are segregated during religion lessons at school.”  

Mifsud said that the Department for Inclusion has backed his proposal, and that he has received a lot of positive feedback from fellow university academics. He is currently debating it both within the Faculty for Education and with the Faculty of Theology and plans to commence dialogue about it soon with the government and religious communities. 

“I believe that people in Malta who want their children to grow up as mature citizens in a democratic and multicultural society will respond positively to this proposal, but those with exclusive interests will resist it.” 

In light of the impending closure of the Mariam al-Batool Muslim school in Paola, Imam Mohammed El Sadi earlier this month said that Muslim students should be allowed to learn Islam at state schools. Archbishop Charles Scicluna said that he would be open to allowing Muslim students to have separate classes in Islam while their peers have their normal Catholic religion classes. 

Laiq Atif is the leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community

However, Laiq Ahmed Atif, leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Malta, said last week that religious education at state schools should be secular and void of doctrine. 

“States and religions are different entities and each should play their own role,” he said. “State schools should provide secular education to all students irrespective of their faith.

“Muslim students can go to imams and prayer-schools to learn about their faith, and similarly for Christians and Jews. The state’s role shouldn’t be to indoctrinate students but to provide them with basic points about each religion.” 

Education minister Evarist Bartolo was resistant when asked during a recent Xarabank interview whether religion at schools should be taught from a cultural, rather than a doctrinal approach. 

“I think religious education would be diluted if it were to be taught solely as a cultural study,” Atif said. “It is important to understand the historical aspect of religion, but God forbid we reduce religious education to its cultural history. Religion is something that is alive, and should also be taught through its behavioural and belief aspects.”