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Experts propose interreligious studies to strengthen tolerance
Experts from the Netherlands and Indonesia have suggested that learning about all religions and not just one's own should be cultivated in schools in an effort to develop understanding, acceptance and tolerance among students.
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Muslim and Christians students perform a "Peace" dance in the opening of the International Conference on Inclusive Religious Education in the Netherlands and Indonesia held in Ambon, Maluku on Aug. 23. (The Jakarta Post/Ahmad Junaidi)
S
uhadi Cholil of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University of Yogyakarta said students currently only study their own religions and learn very little about other faiths.
“A few private high schools, such as in Bogor and in Yogyakarta, provide their students with multi-religious studies. It would be better if the government also offers multi-religious studies [in public schools],” Suhadi said on the first day of the International Conference on Inclusive Religious Education in the Netherlands and Indonesia held in Ambon, Maluku, on Wednesday.
He said the government should change the curriculum of religious teaching and train teachers if it wanted to offer interreligious studies and create religious tolerance in schools.
Recent surveys in Indonesia, including one by the Wahid Institute, showed growing religious intolerance among students and teachers in state-run senior high schools.
Frans Wijsen of Radbout University of the Netherlands said the shift from the study of single religions to interreligious studies had been on the educational agenda in his country since the rise of secularism.
He said the in the Netherlands, which enforced a separation of state and church, religious studies have begun to move from objective to engaged.
