Malaysia is a secular country where Islam is the state religion. Federal Constitution guarantees freedom of religion for the citizen. All along, the Ministry of Education has separated Muslims and non-Muslim students in the implementation of primary and secondary school moral education curriculum. Muslims has to attend the courses on Islam; meanwhile non-Muslims need to attend moral education. Many religious groups other than Islam, generally considered moral education cannot replace the content of religious education. Malaysian Buddhist Youth Association (YBAM) is committed to fighting for introducing the religious education into the school curriculum. Back in 1998, YBAM has published the "primary Buddhist syllabus and outline description", followed by an active compilation of primary school Buddhist textbook. After 11 years of hard work, a full six primary Buddhist textbooks and teachers' guides finally published, with each set of textbooks appended with the disc. YBAM launched the "Get a Primary School Buddhist textbook subsidy scheme" in 2012 to the National Chinese Primary Schools. This paper discusses the feasibility of implementing Buddhist courses as a religious elective subject in Chinese Primary School, Malaysia.
The study used the literature review methods, and through four orientations to demonstrate the feasibility of this issue. These four orientations are globalization religious freedom orientation, federal constitutional guarantees of religious freedom orientation, national education philosophy in the humanities building orientation, as well as the integrity of the religious curriculum development orientation. This study will explore through various orientations towards the implementation of religious education at its pros and cons. This study also proposed strategic of the feasibility of implementing religious courses into primary school curriculum.
