Synergyzing Tertiary Education Islamic Studies Curriculum for A Sustainable Tomorrow

Abstract

Islamic Studies is a subject taught at all the levels of formal education today without prejudice to religious background, belief inclinations or geographical boundries. Its study concentrates on the teaching of some subjects like religious studies in addition to other secular subjects like Languages, Law, Mathematics, Science, History, Philosophy etc. This subject has religious and secular topics in its curriculum content. However in the recent times, the number of students studying this subject in the universities has contniued to decrease across the globe and particularly in Nigeria. This decrease has been a sort of concern to teachers teaching the subject, concerned Muslims and Islamic lecturers in the universities whose jobs are being threatened for lack of students to enroll for the subject in the universities. This study therefore attempted to look into the reasons why students do no longer wish to study the subject in the universities. It was observed that students these days would want to study a course which would gaurantee them future job security and incomes. This study confirmed that Islamic Studies might not be able to guarantee this presently because of the content of the curriculum in use. The study concentrated on lecturers who had been in service for over a decade and analysis of the findings further confirmed that the present curriculum of Islamic Studies needed to be synergized to accommodate practical oriented skills, computer appreciation and Islamic financial courses to make Islamic Studies adequate and worthwhile for study to sustain its tomorrow’s future. This would make the subject more attractive and enable the students acquire practical skills which would make them function more effectively in the society without jeopardising their religious beliefs and practices.