June 23, 2002	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1423

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PESHAWAR, June 22: Only 50 Madaris, out of 900 registered in the Frontier province, will get financial assistance from the provincial Auqaf Department during the current financial year.

A senior official of the Auqaf Department told Dawn here on Saturday that the district governments had found some 1300 seminaries — above 900 registered and 300 unregistered in the 23 districts of the province. But only 50 of these registered Madaris would get the assistance, he added.

The government has released Rs2 million for Madaris and each of these 50 institutions will get roughly Rs40,000 for the development and maintenance work.

Informed sources conceded that the government had decided to involve the Frontier Education Foundation (FEF) to release funds to the Madaris to help ease their financial burden. The FEF was established to assist the private sector educational institutions functioning in the province.

The Auqaf Department officials claimed that the registered and unregistered religious institutions in the province had expelled foreign students following the government policy.

An official concerned claimed that 99 per percent religious institutions in the province had no foreign student, adding that there was no sign of providing military training to the students and they were also not involved in promoting sectarianism. He said that only those Afghan students, who had valid documents, had been given admissions to the Madaris this year.

The official said that the government had tasked the district Nazimeen to check the presence of foreign students, including Afghan refugees, in the religious schools, after which the Auqaf Department would release the assistance to the particular institution.

The Auqaf Department will start Madaris registration in the province after the promulgation of Madaris Registration Ordinance 2000, likely to be approved within a couple of days. In the proposed ordinance, officials concerned said the government had exempted mosques from registration while Provincial Madaris Education Boards (PMEBs) could amend the curriculum.

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