ISLAMABAD: The religious educational boards belonging to five schools of thought here agreed to look into a government proposal to incorporate contemporary education into their syllabus up to the primary level.

In a bid to streamline the education standards in the seminaries, the representatives of the boards that conduct exams of the madressahs belonging to the Barelvi, Shia, Deobandi, Ahle Hadith sects and the Jamaat–i-Islami were called to a meeting.

The meeting was originally scheduled to be chaired by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan but later it was shifted to the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

During the meeting, Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Mohammad Yousuf presented a pilot project to the members of the seminary to also impart contemporary education to the students of the madressahs.

Representatives of five religious education boards seek time to respond to govt proposal

Incidentally, with only one day remaining for the end of 2014, the minister informed the participants that the pilot project would be launched for three years - from 2014 to 2017.

The project would be launched in 100 seminaries across the country under which one teacher would be hired at each madressah for a monthly salary of Rs13,000 to teach subjects of modern education.

It was also decided that a working group would be formed to streamline the madressah curriculum, so that the students could easily adjust with the routine schools if they wanted to attend them.

The working group to be formed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs would have representations from the religious boards, Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

The copy of the proposed pilot project was distributed among the representatives of the religious boards who promised to respond back after consulting their respective members.

However, all the Ulema were unanimous in objecting to the term ‘mainstreaming’ of seminaries mentioned in the proposal.

“This is factually incorrect. We are already in the mainstream and providing education to more students than the modern schools,” said Mufti Muneebur Rehman, who heads the Tanzeemul Madaris Pakistan of the Barelvi sect.

Qari Hanif Jhalandhri of Wafaqul Madaris al Arabia, the board for the Deobandis; Qazi Riaz Hussain Naqvi and Abdul Haidri from Wafaqul Madaris al Shia and Maulana Yasin Zafar representing Wafaqul Madaris al Salfia (Ahle Hadith) attended the meeting.

The Jamaat-i-Islami Board, Rabtatul Madaris, was represented by Maulana Abdul Malik and Attaur Rehman.

All the five boards have formed a collective platform - Ittehad Tanzeemat Madaris-i-Deenya - to deal with issues of mutual concerns.

Qazi Riaz Hussani Naqvi said an agreement had been reached between the government and the madressahs in 2010, which should be carried forward.

“We do not need to reinvent the wheel and do all the exercise again,” he said, adding “the government showed slackness in implementing the earlier agreement.”

The meeting was also attended by State Minister for Education Engr Balighur Rehman and officials Auqaf departments of four provinces and home departments of Sindh and Balochistan.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2014