MP planning board exams for madrasas, Sanskrit schools

While the Madrasa Board was set up in 1998, the Sanskrit Board was set up in 2002. In the hope of getting recognition and Government grants, hundreds of institutions came up over the last few years without doing much to improve the quality of education.

The Government admitted that there is little credibility in the examinations conducted by the respective boards, which are mostly approached for getting affiliation by the operators.

Both the boards are unhappy with the Government’s move to involve the Secondary Education Board in conducting examinations and fear they will be rendered redundant.

“Why don’t they simply dissolve the board,” asked a Sanskrit Board official. According to him, fake institutions came in picture only because the Board gave them recognition on the basis of inspections conducted by respective District Education Offices.

The boards don’t have staff to carry out own inspections.

Education Minister Laxman Singh Gaud at a recent meeting of the departments associated with education, expressed strong reservations over the examinations conducted by these boards, saying they merely promote students. He asked the education department to submit a proposal to involve the Secondary Education Board in the conduct of examinations, a move that has made students and organisers jittery.

There are about 5,350 registered madrasas in Madhya Pradesh that got government recognition because they promised to introduce normal curriculum along with religious education.

The madrasa Board has written to the education department painting a scary picture of what will happen if the Secondary Board conducts the examination for students who cannot compete with their counterparts who attend regular schools.

Sources in the Board told The Indian Express that madrasa students get up to nine attempts to clear five subjects in a year. And unlike the Secondary Education Board, the madrasa Board conducts examinations twice a year. “Even those who teach in madrasas are not trained properly. If students of such teachers take regular examination, they can’t do well,” a Board official said and argued that not all madrasas are bad.

The Board is also worried because if the proposed move comes through, they will have little control over institutions. “As such we have difficulty getting cooperation from the schools, imagine what will happen if the power to conduct the board examination is also taken away from us,” the Board official asked.