The Balochistan government has launched an accelerated learning pathway (ALP) programme to bring religious seminaries operating in the province into the mainstream.

The ALP seeks to broaden the scope of education in the seminaries and has been jointly launched by the provincial government and the Balochistan Rural Support Program (BRSP), a non-government organization operating in Quetta and Pishin districts.

In the first phase of the initiative, worldly education is being taught in 90 seminaries, besides religious education.

"We want to bring all madressahs (seminaries) into the mainstream," Secretary Education Abdul Fatah Bhangar told a meeting of the Balochistan Advisory Council for Education (BACE) on Thursday evening as the initiative was launched.

Educationists, well-known religious scholars and members of the civil society participated in the meeting.

"Our utmost effort is to bring the out of school children into schools," said BRSP Chief Nadir Gul Bareech.

The meeting was told that currently, over 9,000 students were getting religious and worldly education in these 90 seminaries.

"Our objective is to promote tolerance and impart better education to students," Dr Atta ur Rehman told the participants of the meeting.

For the ALP program, the provincial government has allocated an initial sum of Rs50 million during the financial budget for the year 2017-18. The amount will be spent on improvement and provision of basic facilities to seminaries students.

There are 3,210 madressahs registered in the province. Earlier, seminaries were registered by Balochistan industries department whereas now, they are registered by the education department.