KARACHI: 40 madressahs to register with inter, matric boards
By Hasan Mansoor
KARACHI, Nov 13: At least 40 Islamic seminaries have approached the boards of education in the city to get their students registered with the secondary and higher secondary certificate courses, officials told Dawn.
All the educational boards of the country had notified a joint policy to get the nation’s over 1.5 million madressah students enrolled at over 16,000 seminaries into the fold of the mainstream educational system as decided by the federal education ministry earlier.
The Inter-Boards Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) had last month formally endorsed the education ministry’s policy of bringing madressah pupils into the mainstream and invited all the seminaries to approach the respective educational boards for affiliation.
“Some 22 madressahs in Karachi have approached us and got themselves affiliated,” Anwar Ahmed Zai, Chairman of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK), told Dawn.
He said all those madressahs, which had established the faculties for English and mathematics, were eligible to apply for affiliation with the educational boards.
“The students of the affiliated madressahs who had completed their preliminary education (Ibtidaiya) could be registered with the secondary education board and those who had completed the advanced course (Sanviya) could be registered with the BIEK for next year’s examination,” said Mr Zai.
According to the procedure, the students of Ibtidaiya and Sanviya will have to clear the papers of English and mathematics to get matric and intermediate certificates. Besides, those madressah students who get matric certificates through that procedure could be eligible to sit the intermediate (humanities) examinations as regular students, while the students of Sanviya could become eligible to appear in the BA examinations.
“These students cannot become position holders but they can get the grades,” said Mr Zai.
He said more madressahs in Karachi were approaching the BIEK for affiliation and their number could reach 100 by January, when the board would complete its registration process.
Meanwhile, officials in the Board of Secondary Education Karachi said they, too, had registered over 20 madressahs for SSC examinations.
Similarly, it is learnt that the boards in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and Larkana have also got applications from the management of some madressahs.
“It is an excellent opportunity for the students of madressahs to join the mainstream educational system. All the madressahs and madressah boards are being informed about the future benefits and prospects for their pupils,” an official in the education ministry said.
