KUALA LUMPUR, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- After a deadly fire at a religious school in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, which killed two teachers and 21 students, more people have called for improved regulation of such schools.
The fire started Thursday morning at the Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah school located at a village about 3 km from the signature Petronas Twin Towers.
Soiman Jahid, deputy director of Fire and Rescue Department, said many of the victims were found dead by the windows on the third floor because they were trapped by the fix grills on the windows. He also said the school, though already registered at the religious authorities, did not acquire necessary fire safety permits.
The number of private tahfiz schools, which teach students to memorize the Quran, are mushrooming in recent years in Malaysia. According to government figures, there were about 1,200 tahfiz schools nationwide, 670 of which are not registered, resulting in lack of regulation.
In April, an 11-year-old boy from a private religious school in the southern Malaysian state of Johor had to have both of his legs amputated after he was allegedly abused at the facility.
It is not the first time for private schools to get involved with fire accidents. The Star newspaper reported that since 2015, there have been 211 fire accidents involving unregistered and private religious schools in Malaysia.
Mohd Arif Awardi, a staff member of the tahfiz school, who managed to escape from the fire, told Xinhua at the scene that he has not received any fire safety training after he began to work at the school several months ago.
Azeman Abdullah, a local resident from Malacca state, who sent three of his boys to attend a part-time private religious school, said lacking a unified regulation system, in terms of syllabus and fire safety measures, may be a major drawback of such schools.
But he insisted that there are some good examples, for instance the state government doling out more funding for religious studies.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is currently visiting Britain, also weighed in on the matter, saying on Friday that the management of tahfiz religious schools in Malaysia should give importance to the safety at the institutions by adhering strictly to all safety regulations imposed by the local authorities and Fire and Rescue Department to prevent a recurrence of such a tragedy.
The Malaysian government formulated the National Tahfiz Education Policy, which is slated to take effect once it gets approval from the Conference of Rulers.
Mohd Asri, an Islamic scholar in Perlis, told the New Straits Times on Thursday that there were a number of private Islamic schools which were set up based on some individuals' personal agenda and failed to meet the basic standard of the education ministry.
"Issues such as fire, abuse, death of students and other safety issues related to such schools need to be addressed in order to save the future of Muslim children," he said.
