Director of Diktis: PTKIN’S Curriculum needs to sharpen students’ critical thinking

Diorama, UIN News Online – PTKIN’s learning curriculum in need to emphasize the critical thinking of education.  It is required for all PTKIN students and graduates in order to filter all information obtained from various media.

This was said by the Director of Islamic Higher Education (Diktis), Ministry of Religious Affairs Indonesia, Arskal Salim at the PTKIN Rector forum meeting held at Diorama Room, campus I of UIN Jakarta, Monday (02/18/2019).

“Why people easily fall for hoaxes? Because of the lack of critical reasoning to verify the information received. Therefore, PTKIN needs to introduce critical thinking education,” he said.

Arskal said, the development of information technology brings improved communication and information flow. This progress should ideally be addressed with critical reasoning, including from the academic community.

However, the acceptance level of each individual is quite diverse. In addition to hoaxes or false information, there is a lot of information that encourages radicalism and intolerance.

According to the 2017 UIN Jakarta’s Center for the Study of Islam and Society survey, social media has a role in spreading narrow radicalism and intolerance to the community (58.8%). As a result, according to the same survey, 33.3% of students (as one of the research respondents) argued that intolerance to minorities was not a problem. Even the detection of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) in 2018 noted that 31% of Indonesian students were exposed to radicalism and 7 universities were suspected of being exposed to radicalism.

Such condition, he continue, need to be considered by all PTKIN. The Directorate of Islamic Higher Education of the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Indonesia hopes that the PTKIN institution to encourages critical reasoning education. "So, when receiving information, they can pay attention to the validity of the information," said Arskal. (usa)