NILAI, December 4, 2017 – The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) today launched the Blueprint on Lifelong Learning for Islamic Education 2017 – 2025 in a bid to strengthen tahfiz and pondok education system through the integration of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and entrepreneurship.
Minister, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said the blueprint was also aimed at giving more opportunities to the public to obtain religious knowledge through programmes offered by institutions of higher learning.
“The blueprint will give added value and continue to strengthen Islamic education up to international level in line with the fourth industrial revolution.
“The objective is to enable the programmes implemented under the blueprint to be finetuned so that more tahfiz institutions would be involved in TVET, besides improving the quality of the programmes through international collaborations,” he told reporters after opening the International Conference On Lifelong Learning For Islamic Education 2017 and launching the blueprint at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM).
Also present were USIM vice-chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Musa Ahmad and president of the Malaysian Tahfiz Schools Association Manolito Mohd Dahlan.
Elaborating, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said to attain the aspirations of the blueprint, four strategic thrusts had been drawn up, namely Quality Enhancement, Widening Access, Ecosystem Sustainability and Globalisation.
He said lifelong learning initiative for Islamic education had been implemented through various programmes since 2015.
“In 2015, we have recorded 20,837 participants from 751 programmes and in 2016, there were 20,947 participants from 519 programmes. This year, 29,140 people have been participating in 1,038 programmes as of October.
“The statistics showed that the number of participants has been on the rise each year and with the blueprint in place, it is hoped that the number of programmes and participants will increase further,” he said.
–Bernama
