PESHAWAR: The elementary and secondary education department has failed to begin registration of seminaries in the province as the first step towards their mainstreaming since it took the responsibility from the industries department around a year ago.

The industries department used to register religious schools under the British era’s Societies Registration Act, 1860, until 2017 when the National Counter Terrorism Authority assigned that task to the education department.

There followed the amendment to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Rules of Business, 1972, by the provincial government to fulfil a legal formality for the purpose.

Official says legal, curriculum issues obstructing task

Sources told Dawn that the province had around 3,000 registered seminaries of Deobandi, Barelvi, Salfi and Shia schools of thoughts, and Jamaat-i-Islami. However, they total almost twice more than the unregistered ones.

They said over one million students were enrolled in religious schools both registered and unregistered.

The sources said the provincial government had no records of unregistered seminaries and their students.

Soon after being tasked with registering them last year, the education department distributed proformas to religious schools to furnish details of their affairs.

Every religious school was also told to submit an undertaking to the education department saying it won’t impart education on militancy, terrorism, anti-state activities or sectarianism, and that it will get its accounts audited by a government-recognised chartered accountant on an annual basis and submit its report to the relevant department.

Also, the seminaries will declare that they neither have any links with banned outfits nor will they do so in future.

However, the seminary registration by the education department was blocked by some issues, which came to light during the relevant officials’ meetings with the representatives of religious schools.

A senior official of the department insisted that the task was shifted to his department without fulfilling formalities.

He said the government changed its rules of business to empower the education department to register seminaries without amending the Societies Registration Act, 1860, a legal requirement.

The official said under the existing law, the industries department continued to have the authority to register religious schools in the province.

He, however, said a meeting of the education, industries and law departments held on last Tuesday decided about the amending of the Societies Registration Act, 1860, to empower the education department for the purpose.

The official said another issue facing the education department was about the formulation of seminary curriculum as directed by the Nacta.

He said the seminaries had asked the department to declare curriculum a federal subject fearing if it was devolved to provinces or education departments, then the nationwide seminary curriculum wouldn’t have any unanimity.

The official said currently, seminaries of all four provinces, Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan followed the same curriculum.

“We have forwarded the concerns of seminaries to the federal government about curriculum and are awaiting reply,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2018