Commission to regulate religious seminaries soon

ISLAMABAD: The federal government is making all-out efforts to constitute an Islamic Education Commission (IEC) to regulate religious seminaries as part of National Action Plan (NAP) prepared to combat extremism and terrorism in the country, the sources told The News here on Sunday.
“The Ministry of Religious Affairs has informed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif about constitution of IEC. The premier supported the idea and directed to ensure its constitution in coordination with all the stakeholders,” the sources said.
The sources said the government had made some basic changes in its plan to regulate the religious seminaries and now it was pursuing a plan to establish IEC instead of introducing madaris reforms that proved to be a hard nut to crack.
The sources said that IEC would attest degrees and courses offered in seminaries that would not only increase their authenticity but also enable the students to get jobs at the highest level.
They said that IEC would have an active role in preparation of curriculum and it would also provide financial aid to ensure qualified faculty members and quality of education in the religious seminaries.
The official record showed that the government had divided the religious seminaries into four categories: the A-category seminaries have been identified as potential threats; B-category as highly sensitive; C-category as sensitive and D-category as non-extremist. The plan of establishing IEC will help the government regulate the educational structure in all these seminaries.
When contacted, Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousaf told ‘The News’ that it was important to regulate education in the religious seminaries to thwart the threats of extremism and terrorism in the society.
He said that they had been taking measures in line with National Action Plan and establishment of IEC was also a step to bring the seminaries at par with other educational institutions in the country.
“Our main target is to ensure uniform education in the country and we are also taking measures to remove the gap between the government educational institutions and private school and colleges,” he said.
He said they had contacted the representatives of the organisations of seminaries and taken them into confidence about constitution of IEC, adding, “Most of them have termed it a historic step that would bring the students of seminaries into the mainstream education sector.”