Don’t bring the dead to school, says teachers’ union
NUTP says the tombstone replica should have been placed in an enclosed area of the school’s compound.
The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) said that while it was not against teaching students about Muslim burial rites, the school should have taken into account its students’ racial composition.
“It might make non-Muslim parents uneasy,” said NUTP president Kamarozaman Abd Razak.
“It (the tombstone replica) should have been placed in an enclosed area,” he said, adding that the same rule would apply for tombstones representing other communities.
The move to display the replica of the tombstone in the open in a secondary school in Klang, Selangor was first questioned by Hindraf chairman P Waythamoorthy.
The education ministry however explained that the tombstone replica was brought into the school to aid in the teaching of the “funeral management” syllabus of Form Three Muslim students.
The ministry has since directed the school management to move the replica of the tombstone to another corner of the school compound to avoid confusion and protect the sensitivities of non-Muslim students.
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Meanwhile, Kamarozaman said schools should discuss such moves with their respective Parent Teacher Associations first to avoid controversies in the future.