Reforming madrassas

Madrassas are in need of both reform and being brought into the mainstream

Madrassas are a core element in the suite of options that make up education in Pakistan and they are in need of both reform and being brought into the mainstream. Both issues have been on a variety of tables for years, and the last government in the form of the National Action Plan (NAP) formulated after the Army Public School massacre had prioritised both to little effect.

There has been some madrassa registration in Punjab but it is patchy elsewhere and a uniform madrassa curriculum or set of educational standards is as far away as ever. The baton has now been passed to the incumbent government of the PTI and they are quick out of the blocks. The PM pointed out on Wednesday that the madrassas made a significant contribution to national education, and that equating them with terrorism and extremism — as has happened and continues to happen particularly in the Western media — is ‘unjustified’.

The PM has met with the heads of five madrassas representing the four mainstream schools of thought and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The education minister was also present and the government side emphasised that mainstreaming madrassas was a top priority and that the government wanted to eradicate the class-based system of education. This latter is important as the madrassas draw their students mostly from the poorer end of society. What they offer is free but often sub-basic and inadequate preparation for the emerging modern world of cyber-connectivity and accelerating change.

The government’s intentions are entirely laudable but we have been here before, and several times at that. The madrassas, for a variety of reasons some of them doctrinal, are highly resistant to change no matter the lip service that is currently being paid. Meeting with a representative group of Ulema is a step in the right direction but herding them into a collective position on reform is no easier today that it was for the previous government. They are going to have to be persuaded that change is in their best interests, that a more open and enlightened curriculum is essential as is teacher training. A tall order but (another) start has to be made.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2018.

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