Case: No confidence vote in the Majlis against the Minister of Education, Dr. Mustafa Luthfee due to the government’s decision to make Dhivehi Language and Islamic Studies optional subjects for A-Level students.
The pros:
- Students can decide what they want to study, and they can focus more on subjects which are relevant to their future careers or interests.
The cons:
- The students miss out on some important lessons being taught in the two subjects, specially in Islamic Studies.
From a neutral’s point of view:
- HSC results are not taken into consideration in job vacancy ads; they always ask for results above C grade in the SSC examination. This means the students who don’t study Dhivehi Language and Islamic Studies do not miss out in the job market.
- If one looks at the recent HSC examination results, one can see a steep decline in the number of students passing these two subjects; which in turn could mean a number of problems (details of which I would not be going into)
- A mountain has been made out of a molehill – politically; which is not surprising given the state of our country’s political atmosphere. Yet another classic case of using religion as a tool for political gains.
What could be done IMHO:
- The O-Level Dhivehi Language and Islamic Studies curriculum and syllabuses could be revised to accommodate the lessons which are taught in A-Levels.
- Special subjects could be introduced, for example: English Language and English Literature are taught as two different subjects; why not have Dhivehi Language and Dhivehi Literature in a similar way? While Dhivehi Language could cover the basics of Dhivehi, the Dhivehi Literature could cover the advanced parts (and could be made optional to those who are interested in studying advanced Dhivehi).
- Just like the rest of the A-Level subjects, the students could sit for the Islamic Studies paper offered by Cambridge University instead of the local HSC examinations.
- Take a poll amongst the A-Level students (and students about to sit for their O-Levels) to see what their opinion on the matter is; after all they are the ones who are getting affected by this.
The verdict?
Grow up, everyone. We have more important issues in our country to deal with than this.
While I agree that Dr. Mustafa Luthfee is not the best Minister of Education we’ve had, I don’t think he should be voted off just for trying to make Dhivehi Language and Islamic Studies optional for A-Level students.
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