FDE fails to play its role under NAP’s mainstreaming of Madrassas

Islamabad : Some 1,085 enrolled students in 40 Madrassa Schools under National Action Plan (NAP) in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) decry of no provision of approved facilitation by Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) and its indifference towards the issues here on Thursday.

Talking to APP, Mohammad Shahid a curate at local Madrassa in the capital’s vicinity said that the students of the seminary lacked proper books, even had no registration in the FDE so that they could appear in the final board examinations .

"I solely deal with a total class of 35 students studying at nursery to primary level.

There is need for another trained tutor to impart quality education to the students," he added.

NCHD had successfully launched Madrassa School Project to bring seminaries in the mainstream and to provide formal education to the madrassa students in ICT, Tribal Areas, Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

He said Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) Islamabad has the responsibility under article 25-A to provide free education till the primary level to the citizens and urged FDE being the major stakeholder in the project to pay due attention to the project.

On contact, the FDE Director General Hasnat Qureshi remained unavailable for his version over the issue.

However, the matter of madrassa schools’ registration, tutor training, provision of books and the directorates meek attention towards these significant problems demand attention on priority basis. The mainstreaming of Madaris would confront serious repercussions if the situation is left unabated.

During a visit of various madrassa schools in the federal capital it was observed that most of the students were acquiring basic level education from nursery to primary level alongwith madrassa curriculum where many of the institutes lacked syllabus books and also had insufficient staff.

Abdur Rehman, a curate at a madrassa informed that there were 55 students enrolled in his school while 29 of them were students studying at tertiary to primary level.

He regretted that there were no proper books, notebooks and stationery available for the students.

The madrassa administration had managed to get some books on its own but were not appropriate to teach.

He informed that most of the children belong to poor families and some are orphans. "The registration of madrassas under FDE was the most important step in the mainstreaming which has been neglected, adding as a result students were unable to appear in the board examinations at primary level," he lamented.

National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) official Rana Ijaz said that it was a seemingly daunting task to convince the clerics and curates in the seminary to teach the primary education syllabus to the hafiz studying Holy Quran and religious knowledge at their Madrassa.