To reform madrasas, HRD moves to set up a Central body

Following the Sachar committee’s recommendations on the modernisation of madrasas across the country, the government has moved a step closer to setting up a Central madrasa board.

Following the Sachar committee’s recommendations on the modernisation of madrasas across the country, the government has moved a step closer to setting up a Central madrasa board. This had also been suggested some time ago by the National Commission for Minority Education Institutions (NCMEI).

As The Indian Express first reported, even though only four per cent of enrolled Muslim school students attended madrasas, the Sachar panel called for linking them to secondary education boards and bringing the certificates they offer on par with those offered by mainstream institutions.

Addressing a meeting of Muslim clerics convened by the NCMEI, Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh said on Sunday, “The government is open to suggestions from all quarters for setting up a Central Madrasa Board, with an aim to modernising these institutions.”

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And echoing the Sachar panel’s observations, he said there was a misunderstanding that madrasas bred terrorists.

Singh told the clerics that the government would listen to their suggestions and try to implement them, and that this was an opportunity for them to place “suggestions before the Prime Minister and the Planning Commisssion before the commencement of the 11th Five Year Plan.”

NCMEI chairman M S A Siddiqui said that a report on suggestions received would soon be submitted to the government. He said that the commission was already in talks with Muslim leaders and madrasa principals on the setting up of a Central Madrasa Board on the lines of CBSE or ICSE.

Among the suggestions received were that:

• The board should be autonomous, set up under and Act of Parliament, and free from state control

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• It should be allowed to generate funds for corpus development and fully exempt from income tax

• Affiliation to the board should be voluntary

Minister of State for HRD M A Fatmi, who was also present at the meeting, suggested that madrasas should also be geared to imparting technical training to people in their mother tongue.

Some Muslim groups, however, have reservations about the setting up of a board. They say it will give the government a chance to “interfere in the affairs” of madrasas, which are primarily aimed at imparting religious education.