YOGYAKARTA • Concerned about how Indonesian students with hearing impairments often miss out on religious education, cleric Abdul Kahfi founded an Islamic boarding school to help them study and recite scripture from the Quran using sign language.

Opened in 2019 in the central Java city of Yogyakarta, the Darul A'shom school employs 12 staff members and has 115 students aged between seven and 28 from across the world's biggest Muslim-majority country.

The students sit cross-legged on the floor, moving their hands expressively while looking down at their textbooks.

Mr Abdul, 48, hopes the school will make it easier for future generations to learn about Islam. "Nowadays, hearing-impaired adults barely know religion in depth because from school age, they have never learnt about it," he said.

In Indonesia, the curriculum in public schools provides limited religious teaching to children with special needs. They start at the age of eight or nine rather than at kindergarten.

Only three out of 10 children with disabilities in Indonesia are able to go to school, according to Unicef, the United Nations children's agency.

Hearing-impaired students typically take about five years to learn to recite and memorise the Quran at the school that teaches via sign language.

"Now I am able to read and memorise 30 juz (parts) of the Quran," said Muhammad Farhad, a 10-year-old pupil, who wants to become a cleric one day so he can pass on his knowledge to others.

Islamic boarding schools are an integral part of life in Indonesia, with about four million students residing in 27,000 institutions across the country, said the religious affairs ministry. The schools are often the only way for children from poorer families to get an education.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE