Madrasas in India- Clearing the negativity

Bengaluru, Dec 10: There is a lot of debate regarding the Madrasas in India and in order to clear that negativity, a group of 11 Muslims organisations have come together under the banner of the Islamic Education Board of India.

This board has suggested sweeping changes to ensure that the negativity surrounding the Madrasas are cleared. More importantly, this board will now introduce a scientific syllabus along with the regular religious teachings to ensure that the students become part of the mainstream.

This unique exercise will commence in Karnataka which alone has 10,000 Madrasas. Apart from the various reforms that will be introduced probably for the first time anyone, irrespective of religion will be allowed to walk into a Madrasa and see what exactly goes on in there.

Re-inventing the Madrasas of India:

The Islamic Education Board also proposes to rename the Madrasas as Islamic Schools. The board proposes to improve the manner in which students are taught in these Madrasas. In almost all the Madrasas students were imparted with only religious teachings.

However, as part of the new reforms, science and other subjects too would be taught. This would ensure that those children who go to Madrasas are not only imparted religious knowledge, but are well versed with the latest in the world as well.

This is being done with an intention of bringing the children to the mainstream.

Breaking the language barrier:

The Board has already undertaken an exercise in which persons from different religion will teach languages to the students of the Madrasas. The students will be taught, English, Sanskrit, Hindi among other languages.

Training programmes are already underway and one would get to see this first in the 10,000 Madrasas in Karnataka.

The Board is currently imparting training to 25,000 teachers across the country to familiarise themselves with different Indian languages so that it could be taught to the students studying at the Madrasas.

Experts from different walks of life have been roped in to train the teachers at Madrasas.

Open to all:

There will no longer be restrictions while visiting a Madrasa. The Board says that anyone and everyone irrespective of religion will be free to walk into a Madrasa.

All these years the Madrasas were a restricted place and this has led to misconception and plenty of negativity among the people.

By letting people enter any Madrasa they want it would help clear the confusion. There has also been a decision to rename Madrasas across the country as Islamic schools. It is an all India initiative and already persons from Maharashtra and Bihar have come forward and lent support.

OneIndia News