Lecturers reminded to be more sensitive towards other's religion, cultures

All lecturers have been reminded to be more sensitive towards the religions and cultures of others when preparing teaching materials.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said as educators, lecturers should promote the spirit of 1Malaysia, by instilling the importance of respecting the religion and culture of other races.

He said the issue of the use of materials which allegedly insulted the Hindus and Sikhs in a slide presentation by a lecturer in the School of Islamic and Asian Civilisation (TITAS) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia recently, should serve as an example to all educators to avoid such controversies in future.

"We should remember, that in the context of Islam itself we are taught to understand other religions and races.

"As Muslims and Malaysians, we should know how to respect one other," he said when commenting on the progress of the investigations into the case of factual errors in UTM's presentation slides.

The issue of the slides which contained inaccurate facts about the Hindu and Sikh communities caused a row after it went viral on social networking sites.

Commenting on the action to be taken against the lecturer concerned, Idris said the ministry left it to the university's administration to determine the type of offence, as well as the punishment to be meted out.