WASHINGTON, July 11: The government is introducing a $255 million plan for reforming madressahs, says a policy brief distributed in Washington on Friday by the Pakistan embassy.

The three-year plan aims at “bridging the existing gulf between the mainstream formal education system and the traditional religious schools in Pakistan by introducing a new, integrated curriculum,” says the brief sent to policy planners and think-tank experts and other officials in the United States.

The new curriculum introduces such modern subjects as English, mathematics, Pakistan studies, social studies, and general sciences to the madressahs from the primary to the secondary level.