Preparation of Islamic Religious Education Teachers in Secular Countries: A Study in Austria

Abstract

Especially in Austria itself, it is estimated that in 2050 the Muslim population will be around 19.9% of the total population and the population increase will be second in Europe after Sweden with 30.6%. Interestingly again in Austria apart from being a secular country but it provides concern for Muslims to develop Islamic religious education there. Therefore, this study aimed to determine how universities in Austria prepared Islamic religion teachers at undergraduate level both in terms of models and curricula to face increasingly complex challenges and a growing number of Muslim citizens. This study used library research, while the approach used interpretative approach. The main reference source was the content on the university website that offers Islamic Religious Education programs. In addition, various sources lead to discourse and curriculum development in Austria. The number of data were displayed using descriptive statistics and described using descriptive qualitative. Then research design that would be carried out was to reveal the course content contained in the web and then reduced, especially in terms of the preparation curriculum for Islamic Religious Education teachers. Of the various courses presented were analyzed using content analysis where the important point was to take the most fundamental content that was related to the principles of curriculum development, namely contextual and responding to the challenges of the times. The results showed that the preparation of Islamic teachers in one of the colleges in Austria consists of undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate degrees. Undergraduate program of Islamic Religious Education consists of two models, namely Bachelor’s Program Secondary School Teacher Training (General Education) – Subject: Islamic Religion and the specific name is Bachelor’s Program - Islamic Religious Education. In general, the content emphasis applied in the preparation of Islamic religious education teachers is still material-based.

Building international standards for Islamic education teacher candidates with reference to CAEP guidelines

“…Recently, teaching of IE as a subject in some European and Western countries has expanded, either within schools dedicated to Muslim communities, or as a subject or part Building international standards thereof in secular schools. This has triggered a call for the development of formal teacherpreparation programs for IE within universities and higher-education institutions in these countries (Abdalla et al, 2018;Berglund, 2015;Lafrarchi, 2020;Munadi, 2020;Sahin, 2018). Several higher-education institutions in Europe provide semiformal IE programs, including Germany, The Netherlands, Serbia (Shakeel, 2018), Finland (Kallioniemi, 2018;Shakeel, 2018), Austria (Munadi, 2020) and Belgium (Ter Avest, 2020).…”

“…This has triggered a call for the development of formal teacherpreparation programs for IE within universities and higher-education institutions in these countries (Abdalla et al, 2018;Berglund, 2015;Lafrarchi, 2020;Munadi, 2020;Sahin, 2018). Several higher-education institutions in Europe provide semiformal IE programs, including Germany, The Netherlands, Serbia (Shakeel, 2018), Finland (Kallioniemi, 2018;Shakeel, 2018), Austria (Munadi, 2020) and Belgium (Ter Avest, 2020). Although differing in structure, these institutions follow similar curricula to programs offered in Muslim-majoritycountry universities.…”

“…This has triggered a call for the development of formal teacher-preparation programs for IE within universities and higher-education institutions in these countries (Abdalla et al. , 2018; Berglund, 2015; Lafrarchi, 2020; Munadi, 2020; Sahin, 2018).…”

Sustainable Islamic Education: Literature Study Towards Achieving the Vision of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

“…Sustainable Islamic education is becoming an increasingly important topic in facing the challenges of sustainable development in the modern era (Rahmat & Yahya, 2020) . Sustainable Islamic education emphasizes continuity in individual learning and development, taking into account the spiritual, moral, social, and intellectual dimensions (Munadi, 2020a;Rahmat & Yahya, 2020) . The main goal is to produce a generation that has a noble character, is competitive, and has an awareness of their responsibilities towards Allah, fellow human beings, and the environment (Kadi, 2022) .…”

The Problems of Supervision of Teacher Education for Islamic Religious Education Subjects in the State Junior High School (SMP) of the West Region of Sijunjung

“…In Islamic teachings, placing the teacher (educator) in a noble position is also a very important figure, so important is that an educator places the position of an educator at the same level as the position of the prophets and apostles. So in Islamic education it has a message that reads "Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave, so that educators are a very important component in the education system (Munadi, 2020). Therefore, any efforts to improve the quality of education must be in contact with the resources of teachers or educators (Ramayulis, 2006:32).…”