Avicenna / Ibn Sina as a Model for Malaysia's Education Public Policy?

(original post)

Following a discussion on the role of religion in public schools in a multi-ethnic country, I volunteered my recent thesis ( https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=950916425089065&id=100005121480279 ) on the subject.

Some Malaysian will refer to the Rukunegara to answer the above. Some have questioned the possibility of removing the Rukunegara as a foundation of policy. I will only raise the following reminder, and then move on to the next point. The Rukunegara is a statement of values, and not a law. It is much easier to overwrite than the constitution. I hope to return focus to the constitution.

The thesis I presented above at (link) you will find to align closely with the Aristotelian (Greek, ~300BC) orientation around the function of citizenship, whereas a notable Islamic thinker on the subject would be Ibn Sina /Avicenna (Persian, ~1000 AD). By Avicenna's time, the West had carried ancient Greek ideals into the context of the church, and so you could fork off into readings on European education at that point in history and reading down the timeline until you hit the US's 19th century implementations of the Liberal Arts*** college.

Back to Avicenna (because we are in Malaysia, talking about Maszlee) the dude's writings are well suited to the discussion we are having. Avicenna's work comes a millenia after Aristotle's and presents a model that takes all of the following into consideration: the Greek Liberal Arts concept, with a focus on the role of turning individuals into parts of a state, as well as Islamic thought. More here, at Section 5 on this link: http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/ibn-sina-education

Given the context of my thesis at the topic link, I would say that if we needed to find an Islamic model of education with direct relevance to the implementation of a multi-ethnic state's public policy, with consideration for the European tradition of three millenia that many of us Christians, atheists, and agnostics are familiar with... then we could use Ibn Sina /Avicenna as a starting point for thought experiments, theoretical ideals, and policy guideline arguments.

(*** Another Malaysian referred to US Liberal Arts colleges, and so I tagged on a bit of trivia about my personal experiences in studying the history of these. Liberal Arts colleges are quite varied in their implementation, but the notion of Liberal Arts refers neither to liberalsVSconservative politics in the 2nd millenia sense, nor to the notion of liberal student-oriented education in the individualistic sense. The term Liberal Arts actually stems from ancient Greek culture, where "liberal" refers to free men, those not slaves, and "arts" refers to their skills or kungfu in general, from academia, to militia, and government.)