Radical Islam and internal security

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Madarsas on rise since formation of State

Rajendra S Markuna | Haldwani

pioneer.com

The plan to modernise Muslim education may not have taken off very well, but growth of madarsas in the State has been quite impressive during the past decade — in fact since inception of the new State.



While there were only about a dozen madarsas registered with the State Muslim Education Mission (MEM), now the number of total such registered religious organisations has gone up to 299.



Interestingly, so far only about 34 have been modernised out of the 299 registered madarsas.



“The total number of madarsas can be much more as there has been no such exercise which can provide the actual number of madarsas. We can’t speculate the total number of madarsas,” said RP Pant, additional director, State social welfare department, while talking to The Pioneer in an exclusive interview.



Delay in setting up of a Madarsa Board in the State could be described as one of the reasons leading to non-implementation of education reforms in madarsas and other vocational training courses and non–registration of rest of the madarsas.



Surprisingly, despite being serious about Muslim education reforms and welfare of the said community, the Government has not been able to execute its plans like introducing technical education in these madarsas on part time basis.



The vocational training programme that the Government wanted to introduce in madarsas through ITIs for unemployed youth could not take off for the want of basic infrastructure in these religious institutions and more importantly due to lack of support from the concerned.



Though, there is an organisation called Muslim Education Mission (MEM) to deal with these madarsas for granting financial aid from the Government, registration of madarsas, examinations but a full-fledged madarsa board is the need of the hour, which could pay due attention to the issues pertaining to these madarsas.