ISLAMABAD: After failing to implement madressah reforms the government has chosen to focus solely on upgrading the curriculum offered by religious seminaries, but the authorities seem to lack direction in this regard as well.
While chairing a meeting on Friday to review the National Action Plan (NAP), Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Mohammad Yousaf emphasised budget allocations to mainstream and upgrade seminaries. He said seminaries’ standards should match the latest educational trends, but no proposal to implement the idea was discussed.
The meeting was co-chaired by Federal Education Minister Mohammad Balighur Rehman.
Mr Rehman said the government has constituted a National Ulema and Mashaikh Council of religious scholars from various schools of thought to modernise seminaries’ syllabi and education system.
Mr Yousaf added that the government has formed a curriculum committee to remove hate speech from religious seminaries’ syllabi.
Religious affairs minister calls for budget allocation to upgrade seminaries, simpler registration process
The council will submit its recommendations to the religious affairs ministry, Mr Yousaf said. He also recommended budget allocations for seminaries to upgrade their education systems, and a simpler registration process.
Officials from the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) briefed the ministers on the registration and regularisation of seminaries according to NAP.
Mr Rehman directed Nacta to provide details of 32,000 seminaries as well as an age-wise breakdown of students enrolled there.
He said the government is working on geo-mapping religious seminaries, but added that their registration is a provincial subject and the ministry will meet with the interprovincial coordination ministry in this regard.
The government proposed madressah reforms after the December 2014 Army Public School Peshawar attack, but the last meeting on new registration procedures for seminaries was held in September 2015.
The meeting was chaired by the prime minister and then army chief retired Lt Gen Raheel Sharif.
Seminary boards, meanwhile, have blamed the government for failing to move ahead with the proposal.
“The government is not doing anything. The five religious boards have submitted our version of the madressah registration form and the ‘national narrative’ document that was suggested by Gen Raheel Sharif in late 2015, but the government is sleeping on it,” Wafaqul Madaris-al-Shia spokesperson Nusrat Ali said.
The boards said that after failing to achieve anything from the proposal to register seminaries, the government is now focusing on improving their curriculum.
“The government launched the up-gradation of the curriculum on two previous occasions, in 2004 and in 2010, but all the hard work from that time is now buried in files,” said Sahibzada Abdul Mustafa Hazarvi, the nazim-i-ala of the Tanzeemul Madaris Ahle Sunnat Pak, a madressah board for seminaries affiliated with the Barelvi school of thought.
Mr Hazarvi said there was also talk about allocating a budget for seminaries in 2004, but the bureaucracy could not devise a way forward.http://www.dawn.com/news/1304184/govt-turns-focus-from-seminary-registration-to-curriculum-overhaul
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