KARACHI, Feb 27: Despite some mandatory orders, only 200 deeni madressahs (religious schools) have so far obtained registration forms from the provincial education department for provision of data and number of local as well as foreign students enrolled, officials said on Friday.

Sindh Education Department had launched a campaign last month to collect data of total number of madressahs in the province, number of local and foreign students enrolled, their status in terms of registration with the department, funding sources and other particulars.

The federal education ministry, in a letter addressed to all provincial education departments in the country, had asked them to collect data of madressahs present in each province, cities, and provide the record to the ministry within a few weeks.

However, the campaign launched by Sindh Education Department for collection of statistics and data related to religious schools has been paid little attention and so far only 200 madressahs have obtained forms from the department and only a few have submitted these forms back to the department.

According to an interior ministry report, there are over 1,200 deeni madressahs operating in Sindh and the estimated number of students of these madressahs is around 200,000. Of them, around 8,000 are expectedly foreigners.

An official of the provincial education department said that although the forms sent by the federal education ministry had been uploaded on the department's website, only a meagre number of madressahs had responded positively.

"A majority of heads and people running madressahs is reluctant to give particulars of their institutions to government departments and agencies that include number of local and foreign students, their source of income and what kind of syllabus is being taught to students," he said.

According to him, syllabus for madressahs is currently under preparation at the department. He said it was being tried that general and technical education could be imparted to students enrolled at these institutions. However, he added that unfortunately these steps were not being welcomed by the administrations of religious educational institutions. -PPI