"Education plays a big role in developing tolerance among the younger generation."
Yogyakarta (ANTARA News) - The National Education Ministry is considering the inclusion of tolerance in school curricula to tackle the negative effects of radicalism among people, Minister Muhammad Nuh said here on Monday.

"Education plays a big role in developing tolerance among the younger generation," the minister said during an inspection of several junior high schools in Yogyakarta on the first day of the execution of a national examination on Monday.

The minister said schools were the front line factor in forming the character of the younger generation with respect to tolerance.

However, the minister said, the responsibility to educate young people about tolerance did not only lie in the hands of teachers but also parents and society.

Religious intolerance had become a serious threat to Indonesia and needed to be addressed seriously and comprehensively by the government and other related elements in the society.

Last February, two separate sectarian incidents happened that shocked the nation. Two days after a deadly attack on Ahmadiyah followers in Umbulan village, Pandeglang district, Banten province, another sectarian incident happened in Temanggung district, Central Java.

In the attack in Umbulan village, three Ahmadiyah sect members were killed.

In the Temanggung incident, at least two churches and a Catholic school complex as well as a number of vehicles were destroyed.

The incident itself was believed by the Central Java provincial police to have been provoked by misleading information disseminated to the public through short message service (SMS) saying that the defendant in religious blasphemy case, Antonius Richmond Bawengan, 50, would be given a light sentence by the Tamanggung district court.

At least 25 people were eventually arrested as suspects in the Temanggung attack.

President of the World Conference on Religions for Peace (WCRP), KH Hasyim Muzadi, urged people of different faiths to remain united.

The noted Nahdlatul Ulama figure also called on the people to maintain alertness agaomst irresponsible people`s efforts to ruin the unity and damage the honor of religious followers in Indonesia.
(Uu.A051/HAJMF001)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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