Islamic Education in the Philippines

Abstract

This chapter argues that the conflict in southern Philippines has not led to any serious radicalization of Islamic education. On matters of religious schooling, parents and educators alike show a level-headed pragmatism. Parents appreciate Islamic education for its ability to instill piety and a religious identity in an unstable world in which neither can be taken for granted. At the same time, parents want their offspring to acquire marketable skills. Islamic schools aim to strike a balance between these two valued ends. No less surprising, and again notwithstanding the thirty-year insurgency, no political party or umbrella organization has been able to seize control of the decentralized religious school system. Until the recent establishment of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Islamic schooling was managed at the local level, and school directors were justly famous for their independent-mindedness.