WASHINGTON, Nov 7: Education Minister Zubaida Jalal’s talks in Washington were dominated by US concerns about madressahs as almost every senior American official she met during her two-day stay in the US capital wanted to know what Pakistan was doing to purge extremists out of these religious schools.
Apparently the most concerned about the madressahs and Pakistan’s effort to bring them into the mainstream was President Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
“She wanted to know how effectively are we pursuing this objective, have we been sidetracked by other concerns, what our future plans are. She showed a great deal of interest,” Ms Jalal told a briefing at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington on Thursday evening.
Generally, she said, the concern of the US administration focused on two points: the madressahs were breeding grounds for terrorism and that the progress in removing extremists out of the madressahs was slow.
“I told them that not all madressahs were involved in extremist activities. Only some did and we have closed them down,” the minister said.
The government, she said, also has closed down four Peshawar-based NGOs that were providing funds to some madressahs. “We do not want any foreign funding for the madressahs that’s why we asked them to leave Pakistan,” she said.
Ms Jalal, during her stay, met Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Dr Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca and discussions with them revolved around matters of national security, i.e. the role of the madressahs in the Pakistani society.
Mr Wolfowitz, Ms Jalal said, wanted to know if the Pakistan government had sufficient funds to reform the madressahs and how was it spending the money it had so far received from the United States for this purpose.
She said Pakistan had received $600 million for education reforms out of which $30 million has been spent on the president’s programme for the rehabilitation of schools.
Ms Jalal said she told US officials that only administrative action or military intervention cannot end extremism. To achieve this objective, she said, Pakistan is working on two fronts: providing alternative education and creating jobs.
The government, she said, also has launched an incentive programme for the madressah to encourage them to register with the education department. Under this programme the government has offered to pay Rs3,000 to 5,000 per month to the teachers of those madressahs who would register. So far, 1,200 have been registered, said Ms Jalal.
She said the government also has made it compulsory for all madressahs to register with the provincial education department whether they opt for the reform incentives or not. She, however, said the reforms would bear no fruits if there were no jobs for the schools’ graduates. To cope with this issue, the government plans to open Khushhali Banks in all 109 of the country’s districts.