Reports that Malaysia may accept a Muslim girl banned from attending school in Singapore for wearing the tudung (Islamic head scarf) is bound to irk Singaporeans who feel that the issue should be resolved domestically.

At the same time, it could offer an escape route out of an apparent impasse that has seen barbed exchanges between Malaysia and neighbouring Singapore over the past weeks.

Right from day one, the tudung controversy has drawn keen interest from both sides of the narrow causeway that links the tiny city state of Singapore to the mainland peninsula.

Earlier this month, Malaysia's Deputy Education Minister Hon Choon Kim was reported as saying that his ministry would consider Nurul Nasihah's application to study in Malaysia. The Singaporean girl's father, Mohamed Nasser Jamaludin, had said he was thinking about it.

Singapore, a mainly ethnic Chinese nation with a Muslim minority, has barred Muslim girls from wearing the tudung in school, saying this is aimed at promoting unity and introducing what one official called ''the whole idea of integration at a very, very young age''.

They may wear it going to and from school, but not in class.

But four primary schoolgirls, including Nurul, defied the ruling this month, sparking a debate that drew criticism not only from domestic critics but also those in Malaysia.

Singapore's education ministry has said the tudung is not part of the school uniform and that wearing the head scarf is non-compliance with school rules.

Schoolgirls usually wear white tudung , but among South-east Asian Muslim women it is usually a colourful head covering that goes with equally colourful clothes or even jeans.

But Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said this week that it was not the right time to have tudung in school because the government wanted to avoid divisions, according to the Straits Times newspaper.

He suggested that Muslim women wear the tudung when they are adults, ''but in school, leave things alone. Don't change the present order of things.''

Inconsistency questioned

The schools involved in the tudung controversy say they welcome the girls' return from suspension as long as they wear the required uniform.

The Straits Times quoted Goh urging Singaporean Muslims to be ''cautious'' in pushing tudung wearing in school, given the environment after the Sep 11 attacks in the United States and the arrests of suspected terrorists in Singapore.

But opposition politician JB Jeyaretnam questioned what he called the inconsistency in the city state's rules, which allow Sikh boys to wear the turban to school or to tie their hair into a knot at the top of the head, but do not allow the tudung .

''It is not the wearing of tudung by Muslim girls and women that will divide the communities,'' he said. ''It is the policies that have been carried out by this government that divided the communities.''

Dr Chee Soon Juan, secretary general of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party, agrees, saying ''racial harmony cannot be preserved by coercing citizens to conform to a certain dress code''.

But Mohammad Maidin Packer, senior parliamentary secretary for home affairs, advised Chee to stay out of the matter and said the respected Islamic leader Mufti Syed Isa Semait had already ''resolved'' the issue.

Mufti Syed advised parents to choose the bigger benefit to their children: ''Education is more important (than tudung ).'' The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore issued a similar statement.

'' The mufti said the ruling is done under forced circumstances. . .so under those circumstances then comes the ruling from the Mufti if you are forced to choose then you have to choose which one is of greater benefit,'' Mohammad Rahizan Yaacob, secretary-general of the opposition Singapore Malay National Organisation, told ABC in Australia.

''But the point is there should be freedom of worship,'' he explained.

Farouk Dawood, a driver and father of the fourth Singaporean Muslim girl suspended from school, told Singaporean media: ''I have a right as a Muslim to practise my religious rules, but I also want her to go to school.''

Not wise

Goh has warned of foreign interference, saying that race and religious relations should be decided by Singaporeans themselves. This week, he said some people had gone to Malaysia ''to raise funds and ''are getting Malaysians involved in our politics. I think that is not a wise thing to do.''

But much to the chagrin of many Singaporeans, there has been strong criticism of the tudung ban from various quarters in Malaysia: from the opposition PAS, other Islamic groups, as well as mainstream Malaysian newspaper columnists.

PAS, in a memorandum handed to the Singapore High Commission, said there was no evidence to show that wearing the tudung would hurt national unity.

Most Muslim schoolgirls in Malaysia wear the tudung to school. Although the tudung is not compulsory, Islamic fervour and peer practice have prompted many young schoolgirls to don it.

Muslim schoolgirls in Malaysia can also wear more conservative attire as school uniforms, and most of them do. They go about in full-length wear with the tudung , unlike non-Muslim counterparts who wear knee-length skirts or pinafores.

Others in Malaysia have also expressed disquiet about the Singaporean position. ''By expelling children from school on the grounds of their religious expression, the government denies their universal and inalienable right to free primary education,'' observes Malaysian political analyst and academic Maznah Mohamad.

''This clearly violates the moral and legal obligation of the state to provide the most basic right to education for the child,'' she argues.

At the same time, Maznah notes apparent double standards in some of the criticism coming from Malaysia.

Of some of the Islamic groups that have come out against the tudung ban, she observes: ''While they glibly invoke the UN Charter (on Human Rights) to defend rights of individuals to cultural practices, (they) are unwittingly guilty of denying these same rights to individuals or fellow Muslims who are seen to be going against the group's norms.''

As for the criticism from the Malaysian mainstream media, Maznah points out that their concept of freedom is based on ''the premise of the inviolability of personal, choice but only in selected avenues of public life such as freedom to dress but not freedom in the areas of civil and political rights.''

Some also see a link between the tudung ban in schools and the region's newfound fear - some say bogey - of rising Islamic militancy. Milah, a female Muslim journalist in Malaysia, says of the tudung ruling, "Why are they enforcing this ruling now?" (IPS)