Find best solution to improve Islamic educational institutions - Ahmad Zahid

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said for that, a meeting between the school operators and local authorities at the national and state levels would be convened to discuss and exchange information that would be needed to formulate long-term strategies and solutions to the issue.

"It is hoped that this move would avoid finger-pointing when problems occurred, such as the tragic fire at the (Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah) tahfiz school in Kuala Lumpur recently," he told the Malaysian media here today.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also Home Minister, arrived here yesterday evening to lead the Malaysian delegation to the 11th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMMTC) which began here today.

Elaborating, he said the current system in which the management of religious and tahfiz schools being under the jurisdiction of state governments probably had some weaknesses that hindered improvement efforts.

He said the situation had also resulted in many operators being left in the dark of the decisions made by top level committees concerning their operations.

Yesterday, Ahmad Zahid when chairing the High Level Committee (HLC) meeting of the Tahfiz Schools Special Task Force in Putrajaya, said the Education Act 1996 (Act 550) should be amended to allow the registrations of private Islamic education institutions including private tahfiz schools to be subjected to the act with the agreements of the state governments.

The recommendation was a proactive measure submitted in looking for ways over issues related to tahfiz schools including security in view of the fact that the management of such schools were currently under the jurisdictions of the state governments.

When asked on efforts to help the schools after this, the deputy prime minister admitted that it was not an easy task as the Islamic laws in the states differed from the federal government.

However, he gave assurance that all decisions made by the federal government would not sidelined the state governments.

"The jurisdictions of the state governments and the Malay rulers must be respected," he said.

He said the main objective now was to ensure that all 941 private tahfiz schools registered with the Malaysian Madrasah Tahfiz Al-Quran Association, involving 9,470 teachers and over 150,000 students nationwide, be given special attention and well managed.

The move was also in line with the government's aspiration to produce 120,000 professional huffaz with academic qualifications in various fields by 2015 through the National Transformation 2050 (TN50) initiatives.