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Marawi City (PNA) – The two system educational set-up in Muslim Mindanao, far from enriching the Filipino Muslims identity, merely serves to make them virtual foreigners in their own country, unprepared to compete in the workplace.

Education Undersecretary Manaros Boransing made this observation and said the split identity the system engenders could boomerang on the government and necessitates proper intervention.

He has proposed that the Department of Education (DepEd) intervene in the madrasah system through an adhoc program called the Comprehensive Educational Development of Muslim Mindanao and the Migrant Muslim Communities (CEDMM).

Boransing, a Muslim academic who has served as acting president of the Mindanao State University in Marawi City, arrived at this conclusion in his proposal to the DepEd on the Islamic madaris education system.

Given this grim prospect for Muslim pupils, on whose education the future for peace and prosperity in Muslim Mindanao rests, the official said concerned Muslim leaders want President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to mention the overhauling of the madrasah system in her next State-of-the-Nation-Address (SONA) in July.

One of the systems is the mainstream public school system which follows DepEd’s National Basic Education curriculum with English as the medium of instruction. The other is the secretarian, private-run madaris which teach Islam as a religion and use the Arabic language.

In either system (even in madaris, plural for madrasah), which are "generally of poor quality," a Muslim pupil ends school without a firm grounding of basic Islamic values, the Islam religion, and the Arabic language for understanding Islam’s book of faith, the Qur’an.

In this bipolarity, the students also fails to imbibe basic education as a Filipino and as a member of the larger, mainstream Filipino society. "His identity is split".

Such dichotomy results in a "half-baked, neither-here-nor-there person without a real hold of his Muslimness, who leaves school without basic competitive skills in the real world, neither of his own ethnicity nor his Filipino roots," Boransing said.

"Muslim youths must be Filipinos who are not only culturally and functionally literate they must posses skills that allow them to compete with any other," said Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus, who handpicked Boransing for his new position.

"You see these types in dropouts like those who joined the rebel movement. Considering that many rebels were of high school age (12 to 18 years old), one can imagine the failure of present-day madaris," Boransing said.

The Muslim educator also believes that 80 percent of young Muslim students DepEd-accredited secular schools, such as the Montessori, do not perceive themselves as "ungrounded on their own religion and values."

Madaris are considered the oldest Islamic educational institutions on Mindanao. Boransing said they are recognized to be the single most important factor in the preservation of Islam faith and culture in the Philippines.

There are an estimated known 700 madaris nationwide, most of them located in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Boransing’s study said. Operated privately, some with foreign funding, they are supervised or accredited by the DepEd.

At least three madaris are located in Metro Manila, one of them operated by a Turkish whose students are from afflument families.

Saying the education is one of the 10 cornerstones of the new six-year term of President Macapagal Arroyo, Boransing said this would strengthen the madrasah education. "This is essential to the success of the ARMM," he said.

The President had signed RA 9054 making the teaching of Arabic language and Islamic values mandatory for Muslim pupils. These subjects are optional for non-Muslim students.

In addition, Boransing told PNA that an executive order on the creation of Madrasah Development Coordinating Committee is pending, while the establishment of a Madrasah Education Institution is in the works.