Discrimination of Religious Education in Schools Studies in Primary and Secondary Schools in Indonesia

Tampubolon, Manotar (2021) Discrimination of Religious Education in Schools Studies in Primary and Secondary Schools in Indonesia. In: The Right to Education Transforming the World Through Inclusive Quality Education, January 24-25, 2021, USA.

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Abstract

Students from ethnic or religious beliefs are the most disadvantaged humans born in Indonesia because apart from being discriminated against socially, they also experience discrimination in education. In general, public elementary to high school students are required to attend religious lessons. The Government emphasized this equality in the national education law that: "Religious education is education that provides knowledge and shapes the attitudes, personalities, and skills of students in practicing religious teachings, which is carried out at least through all subjects.” However, this poses a problem as not all schools have these facilities, and religion teachers are only available for the six official or recognized religions. It means that government-owned schools only have spiritual teachers from religions recognized by the Government, and students whose religions are outside the six are forced to follow religious teachings outside their religion or belief. At the same time, there are no teachers for the student with a belief system in the school; students must take any religious subjects, be they Christianity or Islam, or spiritual teachings that do not conform to their beliefs. There is also a stereotypical element from policy implementers who consider these beliefs to be heretical, atheist, and even communist. Only state-recognized official religious education is compulsory in schools. Students with belief system backgrounds or other than six are not allowed to introduce their religion at school. That is, schools discriminate against student beliefs and against different religious beliefs. For example, Parmalim children of the Ugamo Bangso Batak Community (UBB) forcibly choose other religious education. US Embassy & Consulates in Indonesia (2016) reported that religious believers said they forcibly sent their children to attend religious education classes in one of the six officially recognized religions. The belief system student is obliged to buy holy books used by Christian children when worshiping at church (Assifa, 2016). Schools also require selecting one religion to study faith and religious values because a spiritual teacher from the belief system is not available in schools. This article is a qualitative study using a sociolegal approach, discussing discrimination against students with religious backgrounds. The author uses the theory of intolerance and religious freedom to discuss these problems. The author argues that the legal framework is inefficient in protecting his identity and analyzes whether students lose identity, and warns future minorities. As a result, students lack religious identity because the Government discriminates against students based on religion. Keywords: education, religion, discrimination, identity

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