Three simple reasons:
1. The aim has been all along about control. The need to control the asatizahs or religious teachers in Singapore and regulate their teachings and numbers. especially now when there are more and more “bad” representation of Muslims around the world. To be fair, shouldn’t this regulation be implemented for the other religions in Singapore too?
2. For example, there is an asatizah who has years of experience teaching children how to read the Quran on a daily basis (her livelihood). Problem is that she does not meet the requirement to register for the ARS. And due to health issues and old age, there really is not a chance that she is going to consider getting certified. So will this mean that she will lose her source of income because she is not ARS-certified? True recognition does not come from the government but from us attaining the ijazah and our sincerity to teach.
3. Like it or not, radical or misguided teaching can still happen in singapore. An asatizah who is qualified and ARS-certified can still teach you the wrong things! So what measures are MUIS putting in place to tackle such “legitimate” asatizahs?
Kak Sham
Reader’s contribution
