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Quality of education, or of anything
for that matter, has to be achieved by sedulous
efforts over time. Quality does not come by any
peremptory declaration/announcement/recognition.
As for madrassah education, for decades the
issue was reform and updating, modernizing of its
curriculum, fostering an attitudinal change of
madrassah students and making them more capable
of coping with the needs or a modern scientifically
oriented society.
This had been the feeling of intelligent segments of
society in the years when madrassah chiefly
meant aliya madrassah, an old and established
institution recognized by the government and
administered by madrassah board. It was
expected that as with time the political system made
some progress towards democracy, society as a whole
would be gradually modernized and eventually
multiple systems of education would give place to
one uniform educational system, without prejudice to
the rights of those who opted for religion-based
curriculum.
The utility and desirability of madrassah
education in the existing form was debated even
during autocratic regimes. There was also the
economic side to be considered. It was once
estimated that government expenditure on a
madrassah student was much higher than the
amount spent on a student of a government secondary
school. Of course this applied to aliya
madrassah only.
However, the progressive social activists were
unwilling to press the economic point too far,
recognizing that after all the beneficiaries of the
government subsidy were almost exclusively
underprivileged students.
Things have changed vastly since then. Money is not
the problem, as far as madrassahs are
concerned. The Qoumi madrassah leaders are
saying they don�t want government money, only a
recognition that their education, quality-wise, is
at a par with university education. The source of
money, its conduit and outlet are like the ghost in
a banquet � everyone feels its presence but no one
wants to talk about it.
As for Qoumi madrassah, its very name implies
it is a loose organization, a community enterprise
(�qoumi� means community-based). In recent years
qoumi madrassahs have proliferated. No one
perhaps even knows their actual number and location
of each of them. Some recently established ones are
found to be located at sequestered places. It is not
known whether they have their own controlling body.
Even if there is a controlling body it is unable to
make all the units accountable.
In recent events of bomb blasting when so many
reports of indirect links of qoumi madrassahs
with terrorism were pouring in, no organization came
out proposing to reform the madrassahs
internally or to call them to account. Far from
promising to reform some religious leaders held out
threats of dire consequences if anything were done
not palatable to leaders of qoumi madrassahs.
In other words, many if not most of these
seminaries are self-governed.
And these are not even registered with the
government. Hence government is going to recognize
the certificates of the madrassahs and treat
them as equivalent to university degrees even though
the government has not registered them. The question
then naturally arises as to what is the government�s
approach to the country�s universities and higher
education. The pressing agenda before the education
authorities is to halt further deterioration of
university education and to make their degrees
internationally respected as before.
If we ourselves devalue, relatively, an MA degree of
Dhaka University, how much respect will these
degrees gain abroad? Some quarters therefore regard
the move of treating Dawrah certificate on
the same level as university degree as
anti-education.
First the qoumi madrassah or any other
madrassah will have to acquire at the minimum
the standard of aliya madrassah, the
recognized mainstream madrassah; further
recognition can come much later. And are all of them
teaching even the religion-based curriculum of
aliya madrassah? Although the government chose
to look the other way, investigations by the media
and some other watchful groups in the context of
recent happenings made frightful disclosures.
Afghan mujahids are working as trainers in
many qoumi madrassahs, some are teaching
militancy, prescribing war criminal Gholam Azam�s
books as text and stuffing the minds of youngsters
with perverse religious doctrines, far removed from
the tolerance and humanism and universality upheld
by Islam and promoted by the saints and savants who
visited and stayed and taught in this country in the
days of yore. The primary problem before the nation
is not the value of the Dawra degree but the
information gap on the qoumi madrassahs, what
they are, where they are, what they teach, where
they get the money.
Religious education is an alternative educational
system. Whether multiple systems should ideally
prevail in a country is another matter. Those who
have chosen to go in for religious education should
give expression to their genius in their chosen
field instead of seeking equality with another
field. And if equality of BA/MA is their desire and
they value the mainstream education then they should
have chosen at the beginning the system which leads
to BA/MA. Why choose to become BA/MA via another
route?
This is not the first time that the government has
taken a move which is incredible and irrational. In
this case there is an explanation. There are two
obvious factors responsible for the government
agreeing to treat the Dawra �degree� on a
higher level. The fundamentalists have gained
tremendous strength and all their cravings must be
fulfilled, even if it means torpedoing the education
system, reversing the progress in manpower
development and falling back in the competitive
world and plunging society into the depth of
obscurantism. The second motive arises from a
built-in flaw of democracy itself: the potential
voters must be appeased even if it means gong
downhill.
The fight against obscurantism has not been easy on
the part of democratic rulers and their reform
agenda has not always accorded with people�s
ingrained prejudices. Despite this limitation of
democracy, obscurantist masses have not been able to
pull down all modernization programs. In the case of
great leaders patriotism often prevails and they
resist the temptation of giving in to the lure of
the ballot when vital national interests are at
stake. In our case it seems the leaders are more
single-minded in their wooing of voters and can
spare no thought or sight for secondary concerns.
And in this case it is not just failure to counter
obscurantist forces but a straight capitulation to
them and extending to them an invitation to take
over positions of power without having to raise
their capability. Appeasement is the simplest of all
prescriptions, going downhill is so easy.
It must be conceded that madrassah education
is not invariably a journey towards doom and there
is enough scope for reform. One plus point of the
madrassahs is that many of them run orphanages
which feed and clothe the poor and deserted ones and
the foundlings and provide them a roof overhead. It
is an odd fact of welfare service in this country
that private orphanages are all madrassah-based.
Why the secular philanthropists cannot establish any
orphanage? That madrassah education is not
inherently crippling is evident from the fact that
many educated and distinguished Bengali Muslims of
the earlier generations were products of
madrassahs. In the case of some select
madrassahs of India no praise will be too much.
A fact not widely known here is that there are
madrassahs in north India where one-third of
students and one-fourth of teaching staff are
Hindus. This is because these madrassahs are
welfare-oriented and provide a reasonable standard
of education not too far removed from the mainstream
courses so that the underprivileged Hindus find them
more attractive than the government schools which
too these days provide free midday meal any way. If
the madrassahs are spending money on
underprivileged children, that�s fine but spend the
money, public or private, the right way.
--SAN-Feature Service Courtesy
NEW AGE
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