ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: The government has refused to accept financial and technical assistance offered by the US for mainstreaming of Madressahs, official sources told Dawn on Wednesday.

Sources privy to the meeting held between the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca and Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi this Tuesday confirmed that the offer was made by the visiting US official.

However, the education minister, while responding to the offer, said Madressah reforms would be carried exclusively through indigenous resources and the government would not accept any foreign assistance in this regard, the sources said.

Pakistan has embarked on mainstreaming Madressahs under which subjects like English, general science and maths are being introduced and necessary training being provided to teachers in these subjects.

The sources said the education minister informed the US assistant secretary of state that Madressah reforms was a sensitive issue and the government did not want to engage foreign hand in it.

"If at present we accept any sort of assistance for the ongoing Madressah reforms, it will strengthen the misperception that the ministry was following a foreign agenda, the education minister was quoted as saying.

It is worth mentioning here that the US policymakers believe that religious education offered by the seminaries is a source of extremism and militancy.

In addition to their role in terrorism, they (US policymakers) think that these schools are a concern because of their non-technical and non-scientific curriculum. Many teach only religious subjects to their students, focusing on rote learning of Arabic texts. In essence they are producing a generation of students unlikely to play a productive role in creating modern dynamic economy necessary for reducing the country's grinding poverty.

Whereas, a major reason for the popularity of Madressahs in Pakistan is that the country's public school system is not in good shape and many families cannot afford the fees that are charged.

Madressahs also offer attractive alternatives like free education, free meals, free schoolbooks and even in some cases a stipend. It is estimated that over half a million students study at more than 10,000 seminaries in the country.