ISLAMABAD, April 29: The federal ombudsman has taken notice of a ‘deliberate delay’ on the part of the administration of the Pakistan Madressah Education Board (PMEB) in making the board fully functional over the past four years. Acting on a petition filed by the head of a madressah, the ombudsman asked the PMEB administration to submit by May 15 a detailed report on the affairs of the board which was set up in August 2001 through an ordinance. Most of the major religious institutions, including four Wafaqul Madaris representing various schools of thoughts, had rejected the board and refused to get affiliated with it.

However, a number of seminaries which either had no affiliation with the mainstream institutions or had differences with them submitted applications for affiliation, apparently to get financial assistance and equipment from the government. Since its inception the board has received such applications from only 600 out of over 10,000 religious schools operating in the country.

Hafiz Abdur Rahman Abbasi, the petitioner, submitted to the ombudsman that the PMEB had been set up in 2001 and given a grant of Rs30 million to run its affairs. The objective of the board was to regulate madressah education by including modern subjects in the curriculum and introducing advanced methods of teaching so that students could attain religious as well as modern education and play an effective role in the service of the country.

The PMEB administration, however, has remained indifferent to the working of the institution and has not responded to demands that it should provide details of spending of the grant. The board has been set up in the Haji camp, Islamabad, and the religious board secretary is its part-time chairman.

The PMEB released its first report in 2002 but since then no report appeared which, the petitioner said, provided with “ample proof of the administration’s incompetence, laxity and indifference.”

Referring to his own school ‘Jamia Masab bin Umari Phagwari, Murree’, the petitioner said he had not received any reply from the board to his application for affiliation submitted two years ago.

Meanwhile, an ulema convention has been planned for May 15 at the Jinnah Convention Centre to discuss the outcome of the government’s policy on religious schools. Maulana Muhammad Hanif Jalendhry, head of one of Wafaqul Madaris, is organising the convention.