Islamic Versus Modern Western Education

Abstract

The Islamization of education, which is part of the more overarching discussion of Islamizing knowledge, has activated Muslim social and natural scientists as well as scholars in the humanities. The wide extension of scholarly fields involved has colored the discussion and multiplied its views. For a reader in the subject of Islamic education, this multiplex picture can be confusing and make it hard to distinguish petween the different components. In his research, Kitaji has attempted to compare the modem western and Islamic educational systems. He has divided his research into four main parts. First he gives an outline of national education. In this part, he departs from the problems faced by the Japanese educational system, where the drop-out rates have nearly doubled in the last ten years. In the case of Japan, he finds that the curriculum is rigid and does not take into account individual differences in the ability to absorb information. He further argues that the psychological atmosphere discourages pupils, for the system tries to control them by regulating their attitudes and psychical appearance (i.e., hair-style and clothes). From the particularity of Japanese schooling, he turns to a description of the western educational system in general. What Kitaji does is to generalize the western educational system in terms of Japanese actual experiences, western educational philosophy (mostly French), and western domestic critics. This results in a generalization that is far too broad, and I, who live in Sweden, tecognize only a few of the author’s characteristics of the western educational system. However, Kitaji makes an important point, which I assume pertains nearly to all western countries’ national educational system: neglecting the pupils’ identity formation, particularly the spiritual part. He also emphasizes the fact that national education is based upon the state’s demands rather than the pupils’ individual needs. Although Kitaji stresses the state’s role in the development of structure and of curriculum, his recurrent emphasis of the state’s role in curriculum development makes it difficult to grasp whose conscious or unconscious forces are actually working. The research would maybe be more substantial if some comments had been made on this subject ...