In this paper the impact of Hikmah Pedagogy (HP) on critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinking and communication skills of students in primary and secondary schools through the subjects of Malay (also known as Bahasa Malaysia) and English languages were investigated. The participating teachers were trained by experts from the Center for Teaching Thinking, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) and they were observed and supervised to ensure HP was implemented correctly. This study employed the case study method to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data were collected before and after the intervention of the HP using the Cognitive Behavior Checklist. Mid-semester and final examination results were used to gauge improvement in English and Bahasa Malaysia. These data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The qualitative data were collected through interviewing teachers individually at the beginning and focus group discussion (FGD) at the end of study. The data were analysed qualitatively to identify the emerging themes. The findings show that when students were given opportunity to ask questions based on the given stimulus materials and to voice out their opinions in the dialogic approach of HP, they demonstrated the ability to reason well; think about their own thinking; to think caringly and collaboratively. Students showed improvement in their communication skills in both languages which were indicated by the increase in their examination results, particularly in writing and oral skills.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan won its independence seventy years ago, yet its education system continues to be secular. If one of the main aims of education is to prepare the young generation for achieving national objectives, it is but imperative for Pakistan to design an education system from the Islamic perspective. Since Muhammad Iqbal is considered to be the ideologue of Pakistan and we find quite inclusive guidelines for developing a framework for an Islamic education system in Iqbal’s writing, it is imperative to explore his literature dealing with education. Two of his analogies Asrar e Khudi and Ramuz e Bikhudi are such works where we find Iqbal providing us with exhaustive recommendations for the same. The aims and directives for achieving goals of education were extracted from these two anthologies by employing qualitative method analysis and using hermeneutics approach under the supervision of a specialist on Iqbal. The results reveal that Iqbal’s concept and methodology of the development of self or individuality conformed to the approach of modern critics of contemporary education, who claim that the prevalent system is at odds with the natural human faculty of creativity.

This study explored the prevalence of sejahtera living—an idea rooted in the belief that Islam is a way of life and aligned to Maqāṣid al-Sharī’ah —among students at an Islamic university in Malaysia, and tested the extent to which the students’ responses to the questionnaire items on the concept constituted meaningful and interpretable facets of sejahtera living. A total of 596 students voluntarily participated in the study, with the sample being split into two random halves. The first subsample (n1 = 298) was used to identify the underlying facets of sejahtera living, while the other half (n2 = 298) served as the sample for a cross-validation procedure. The respondents filled out an online questionnaire containing 50 items that measured the prevalence of sejahtera living. Descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis were used to address the two research objectives. Results showed that students’ reports of experiencing sejahtera living varied across items. The exploratory factor analyses, with principal axis factoring and the Promax rotation procedure, extracted five strong and reliable factors that explain the inter-correlations among items. The five-factor solution was supported by the results of a parallel analysis. As expected, the underlying facets of sejahtera living were factors associated with the preservations of faith (al-dīn), life (al-nafs), intellect (al-‘aql), property (al[1]māl) and progeny (al-nasl). The findings contribute to our current limited understanding about Muslim students’ sejahtera living, which would lead up to policy formulation and intervention.

This is the second part of my article published in JoEED, Vol.4

In realising the development of ethics and values among Malaysian school-going students, depicted in Shift 3 Aspirations of the Malaysian Educational Blueprint 2013-3025, the study examined how the pedagogy of philosophical inquiry helped in the development of a community of inquiry (CI) in the Civics and Citizenship Education classroom. The study employed a qualitative action research design, where the researcher used the observational method, which is based on the Lipman’s CI checklist, to identify seven elements of CI in the classroom; namely, participation, quest for meaning, shared cognition, challenging as a procedure, deliberation, impartiality and thinking for oneself. Findings of the study showed that the philosophical inquiry pedagogy and the community of inquiry assisted in the effective teaching of CCE as students discovered a more meaningful learning experience, became more empowered in their thinking and views, and more sensitive to the current issues, paving the way to become good citizens of the nation.