Religious Education

Teaching Hinduism to Malaysians

Malaysia Hindu Dharma Mamandram (MHDM) embarked on an ambitious project in the 1990's to produce a comprehensive syllabus for the teaching of Hinduism to students and adults. The syllabus which is for six levels of Hindu religious education was produced after about 10 years of research. Accompanying materials such as teacher resource books, lesson plans and collection of Hindu hymns and religious songs were also compiled and printed.

Starting 1999, MHDM started providing training to at least one teacher from every Tamil school in the country to use these syllabuses and resource materials to teach Hinduism to Hindu students. Many others from national schools, volunteers and MHDM officials have also been trained to teach Hinduism using the syllabus and other resource materials.

MHDM is now in the final stages of producing four publications, namely

• Basic Hinduism Textbook 1
• Basic Hinduism Textbook 2
• Collection of Hymns and Religious Songs
• Guide to Home Pooja

Recommendations

Since 1999, Malaysia Hindu Dharma Mamandram has been appealing to the government to take the appropriate actions to enable the teaching of Hinduism to Hindu students in schools using the syllabus prepared by MHDM. MHDM is prepared to allow the syllabus and resource materials to be used by teachers in schools. Also, Malaysia Hindu Dharma Mamandram is prepared to assist the Ministry of Education to implement the teaching of Hinduism to Hindu students in schools.