INTRODUCTION
The previous report outlined a means of
communicating aspects of Islam to teachers, using the IQRA
Islamobile as the focus of a series of in-service training
presentations, and also by providing classroom support
material in the form of custom-designed education packs. As
the most extensive communication between IQRA and pupils and
teachers in the education system will be through such packs,
this report examines their requirements and possibilities.
An immediate difficulty to be faced is the
present lack of Islamic educational material suitable for use
in the context of the British education system. This will
inevitably mean a need for material to be gathered and printed
specifically for the IQRA Education Packs, and it is with the
selection and implementation of such material that this report
is mainly concerned.
"In many schools the study of traditional
patterns, such as those associated with the Islamic faith, led
to the analysis of their symmetry and form, and an
appreciation of their mathematical elegance. Nevertheless,
teachers often expressed concern at the general lack of
resources available to support the multicultural aspects of
primary mathematics; a factor which frustrated their wish to
do more." [PRIMARY EDUCATION - THE TEACHING AND LEARNING
OF MATHEMATICS (HMI/DES)]
EDUCATION PACKS
Requirements:
- Education packs should be readily usable throughout
all subject areas
of the National Curriculum.
- A variety of projects must be possible based on the
source material.
- Projects need to be differentiated by attainment
targets and levels.
- A teachers guide to the material must be included
- Material should be of cross-curricular use wherever
possible.
- Material should be pupil-user-friendly.
Content:
Good marketing practice suggests that success
is achieved by selling the benefit to the customer, what
satisfies his needs and solves his problems, rather than the
features of the product. Thus it is perhaps worth re-stating
the obvious, that the material should be tailored to suit the
already formulated requirements of educators working within
the present system. It is essential that the pack contents
suit the aims and objectives of the curriculum in all
subjects, and a survey of curriculum matters aims and
objectives can be found in Part 2 of this report.
Themes:
The educational material will obviously need
to be collated around specific themes, whether these be
curriculum subjects such as 'maths' or 'history', or
cross-curricular themes such as 'water' or 'buildings'. Source
material can, of course, be used in more than one kind of
pack. Further consideration is given to the scope of the
National Curriculum, as well as possible themes and content
for IQRA Education Packs, in Part 3 of this report.
Types of Material:
The widest possible range of materials can be
used in the packs -Artefacts, Display material, Information
sheets, Project worksheets, Audio-visual material, computer
programs, and computer data,
Age Ranges:
It will probably be found convenient to divide
material at least into primary and secondary units, with
primary schools more likely to be teaching within an
integrated curriculum, and secondary schools more likely to be
using specialist subject teachers. Some of the material may
well be useful across both age ranges however.
Costs:
The possible unit costs of the education
packs, and the extent to which these costs can be passed on to
schools and LEAs, is beyond the scope of this report, though
an essential element to be considered in plans for the
project. Nonetheless, to conform to the curriculum guides, it
will be necessary for such materials to be provided in schools
by some means, and these curricular statements of commitment
are examined in Part 4.
Schedule of Introduction:
Although it will take more than ten years for
National Curriculum Assessment to reach the upper age limits
of the system, it can be expected that much of the curriculum
content and its defined attainment targets will be in
practical use much sooner than that. It is therefore a
priority for IQRA to establish a proposed schedule for the
introduction of education packs into the different areas of
the curriculum, whether to begin with primary packs on a full
range of themes, or packs devoted to a single theme but with
material to suit all age ranges.
Multi-ethnicity:
While recognising that the multi-ethnicity of
society is one of the major pressures towards the
re-evaluation of educational horizons and responsibilities
(See Part 5), whenever possible the material chosen should
reflect the entire breadth of Islamic culture rather than that
of any specific region of the Islamic world.
The muslim minority:
Although the material is not targeted at the
muslim minority, it is to be hoped that IQRA Educational Packs
will give sufficient insight into the spiritual heart of
Islam, that through their use muslim pupils will be able to
grow in spiritual knowledge throughout the years of their
education, and establish for themselves their own cultural
identity as British muslims.
Islamic studies:
The possibility of Islamic Studies being
included in the curriculum as a separate subject is one that
has received considerable debate, and it is also essential
that possibilities in this area are considered. It has been
suggested that Islamic studies could be modelled on the
Classics curriculum, and whereas this idea seems to have been
largely discounted by muslims, this is possibly due to a
misunderstanding of the educational nature of Classics. A more
detailed examination of the practicality of conceptualizing
Islamic studies in this way is given in Part
6.
