Career Pathways of Local Madrasah Graduates

Dr Wan Rizal asked the Minister for Social and Family Development and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs (a) whether there are proportional statistics of those in the madrasah student cohorts who pursue the "secular" or non-religious academic pathways in their post-Secondary/tertiary education; (b) of these, how many successfully graduate from our local secular tertiary institutions; and (c) whether there are support structures for madrasah students who wish to transition from religious to secular schooling.

Thank you. Madrasahs play an important role in developing our future Islamic religious scholars and teachers, or what we call in our community, asatizah. Our asatizah provide leadership and religious guidance to our Muslim community, amidst an increasingly diverse and vibrant socio-religious landscape. Our madrasahs have produced key religious leaders such as our current Mufti and Deputy Muftis.

Madrasah students receive a comprehensive education in Islamic subjects that is complemented by a strong foundation in secular subjects. This dual education equips our madrasah students with the knowledge and skills to apply the practice of Islam to Singapore's contemporary and plural society, as well as to pursue tertiary Islamic studies later on.

In the past three years, around 35% of students in each madrasah cohort, pursue pre-university madrasah education. They form the steady pipeline of religious leaders for the community. Most of these students will further their tertiary education in the Islamic sciences, in areas such as Islamic Jurisprudence and Islamic Theology. They later return as asatizah and contribute to the religious sector as religious scholars and teachers and mosque religious officers. Some of these students may choose to use their Islamic training to pursue careers in adjacent sectors, such as social services, business and research, that complement the religious sector in serving the needs of the Muslim community and the larger Singapore society.

Madrasah education also enables students who want to pursue non-religious career paths. Some madrasah students move on to post-secondary education at Junior Colleges, Polytechnics and Institutes of Technical Education or ITEs, after their GCE "O" level examinations. For this group, their career path may depend on the field of study that they opt for at these institutes of higher learning. Madrasah graduates in this group have ventured into a wide range of industries such as media, finance and the creative industries, sometimes adding value to these sectors through their trilingual language competencies.

MUIS will continue to work closely with our madrasahs to ensure the curriculum prepares the madrasah students well for future careers in the religious sector.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for his reply. With regard to the pathways and support structures that are in place for our madrasah students, I would like to know more about the dropouts; those who drop out from their studies midway through the madrasah. Are there any support system for them? And are there any support system for them to transition from, maybe, "N" level or "O" level to the Polytechnics and Universities?

I thank the Member for the supplementary question. MUIS' focus must be to produce the best religious teachers for our community, because otherwise, we will be importing them from all over the world and you would have seen the result it has produced in many parts of the world. Therefore, for now, we are quite satisfied with the number of students that are retained at the pre-University level that will move on to acquire professional, recognised degrees in religious studies that will help to guide our community.

For the rest of the students – that means about 70% of them – they pursue a secular educational pathways. Most of them – about two-thirds of these 70% – do it after their "O" level. Which means that they have accessed to the systems of support in the MOE system to choose the right career, to choose the right studies that may fit what they want to do.

In any case, MUIS will be also looking at the madrasah's system holistically, in line with the Committee on Future Asatizah or COFA that Dr Maliki Osman has concluded for us. With that, we also would want to look at the other students who will not be pursuing madrasah education for their career and the kind of support that may be lacking if the national system of support is not enough for them.

I thank the Minister for the clarifications. I would like to ask about the adjacent sectors for madrasah students, in particular, in my speech for the Motion of Thanks to the President, I did propose the expanded capability of the Syariah Court, in view of the increasingly complex Muslim inheritance and estate planning matters. Is MUIS exploring any collaborations with MinLaw, Law Society or even the Syariah Court to expand the capability and experience of the madrasah students in this regard?

Indeed, this was the discovery of the COFA that Dr Maliki chaired, that the landscape or the kind of careers that our asatizah get launched into are no longer quite simplistic. In fact, they have to deal with quite difficult circumstances, even when it is about socio-religious matters. Which is why now we also want to develop adjacent competencies and we are glad that SUSS has opened up this opportunity for madrasah students through lifelong learning opportunities; at the same time to acquire qualifications that will allow them to practise just like any other lawyer or social worker in a way that will contribute to our community, as well as in the future, if they want to go to the larger sector, they can do so too.

I thank the Minister for the support given to the madrasah community. I would just like to raise a question on the level of parity between the support given to the madrasah community by MUIS versus by MOE, in particular, as we look into the future support that is given by MOE in the sense of continuing education as well. I understand that today, madrasah students are not eligible for Edusave bursaries. And things like the IMDA support programme for computers are also done through MUIS. I would just like to know if, and this can be done in future, I guess, whether the level is at parity. For example, are the thresholds for means testing the same as applied by MUIS to be eligible for certain support programmes?

Parents who opt for their children to pursue madrasah education at the Primary school level are actually exempted from the Compulsory Education Act. So, they have made a choice to move into a sector where they know that funding from the Government may not always be available, particularly because it is in the religious sector.

Having said that, they still have options to go back to the MOE system that will provide the full support that they may need. In fact, for some of the areas like for those with learning difficulties, it is best that they go and pursue within the Government sector. Because this is where not only is it available but quality, quantity and availability are made available for everybody.

Having said that, for our community, our focus, as I had mentioned just now, is to produce religious leaders that will be impactful and also relevant to our community, and of course to help Singapore integrate into the multiracial, multi-religious landscape that we all are in.

We will try to increase the support for our madrasah with the resources that we have. As you know, these resources come largely from the community themselves. They are adequate, they have been increasing over time, and I thank all the donors, all the generous donations that the community has provided to support madrasah education as it stands today. In fact, if we compare ourselves to many other places, the structure and the institution of our madrasah are serving us; I would say it is adequate but I will not say that it is something we will settle for and we will continue to improve over time.