An Overview of Governance and Accountability of Tahfiz Institutions in Malaysian: Religious Councils Perspective

¹ Faculty of Accountancy, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka
² Faculty of Business & Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka
³ Center for Islamic Philanthropy and Sicial Finance

^* Corresponding author’s email: snorhafiza@melaka.uitm.edu.my

Abstract

Tahfiz education is one of the popular streams of education in Malaysia and well accepted by Muslim community. Originally the education is being offered in “pondok”, a traditional religious school. Developing through times, it is now also being offered in tahfiz centers as well as in modern tahfiz institutions. These entities specialize in producing tahfiz graduates who can memorize and recite the whole Al-Quran and more than 91% of them are privately owned. The applicability of good governance and accountability measures is indeed highly desirable in these Islamic entities as it deals with the responsibility in fulfilling sacred religious obligation. Though the number of tahfiz education providers (TEP) has grown up tremendously from only 58 in 1999 to 278 in 2011, literatures on governance and accountability of TEP are still lacking as the areas are rarely examined directly. The lacking may lead to unfavorable inferences that TEP are behaving in the manners contrary to the interest of the stakeholders. An ideally accountable governance of tahfiz centers will gain trust from parents and various stakeholders and will indicate the achievement in fulfilling one of the objective of Maqasid Shariah to preserve and promote the religious faith through preserving the memorization and knowledge of Al Quran (the primary source of Islamic Law) by the huffaz. The objective of this research is to investigate external governance mechanism and the accountability of Tahfiz centers as viewed by religious regulatory bodies. A qualitative research approach is undertaken by interviewing representatives from selected State Islamic Religious Councils, State Islamic Foundation and National Religious Departments in Malaysia. Using thematic analysis, findings of this study revealed that there are two-tier governance infrastructures of tahfiz institutions in Malaysia. However, the enforcement of the governance structure is still at infancy level. The accountability frameworks of TEP management divulged in four dimensions; ultimate upwards, upward, parallel and downwards in organizing, teaching and learning, and compliance activities and legal requirements. The accountability can be measured using five accountability mechanisms namely report and disclosure statements, performance assessment and evaluations, participation, self-regulation, and social audit.