Mangalore: Madrasas Likely to be Integrated with Govt Schools

Sudipto Mondal/The Hindu

• The aim is to merge modern and secular education in madrasas 
• Modernisation of madrasa syllabus sought
• Government schools near madrasas may be asked to supply textbooks

Mangalore, Apr 17: Madrasas in the country might be integrated to State syllabus Government schools from the next academic year. This is likely if the Ministry of Human Resource Development accepts the recommendations of a sub-committee of the National Monitoring Committee for Minorities’ Education (NMCME).

Revealing this to The Hindu, the member of the NMCME sub-committee, Hisam Siddiqui, said that the recommendations are part of a larger initiative to modernise madrasas. Mr. Siddiqui was in the city on Wednesday to inspect schools for minorities run by the Government under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

As part of the recommendations (State syllabus), Government open schools near madrasas will be given the responsibility of supplying the madrasas with textbooks of English, regional languages, Science, Mathematics and Social sciences. Teachers from Government schools will also conduct tests and examinations for the students of the madrasas.

At an interaction on the sidelines of the inspection, Mr. Siddiqui said that madrasas have done a great service towards boosting the literacy rate in the Muslim community. “But the students are able to read and write only in the religious languages,” he said. He said that the religious languages have done very little to help their students attain a larger world vision. “The need of the hour is to have modern and secular education integrated into madrasas,” he said.

This partial integration of madrasas with Government schools is an interim step as per the recommendations of the NMCME. Ultimately, madrasas will be governed by a central madrasa board which will function much like the Central Board for Secondary Education.

Very little resentment

Asked about the possibility of opposition to these moves from the religious clergy, Mr. Siddiqqui said, “We have had talks with all the top clergymen in the last few months and they are all keen to modernise the syllabus of madrasas.”

The only thing that religious leaders are concerned about is the possibility of increased Government interference in matters concerning the functioning of madrasas, he said. According to him, the recommendations of the committee had been sensitive to the concerns of the religious leaders. It has suggested to the Government that the autonomy of madrasas must be respected, Mr. Siddiqui said.