Maharashtra govt targets madrasas
Date
7/3/2015 12:10:06 PM
(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Muslims smell a plot by Sangh Parivar
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Mumbai — In a controversial move the Maharashtra government has decided not to recognise about 1900 ‘madrasas’ as schools and the 150000 pupils enrolled in these institutes will not be counted as school students.
According to Dilip Kamble minister of state for minority affairs institutions that do not follow the government approved curriculum will not be recognised as schools.
Children studying at ‘madarasas’ and other institutions based on religious studies — and which do not teach subjects including science mathematics and social sciences — will not be counted as students he adds.
The ‘madarasas’ will also not be eligible for grants says the minister.But Munaf Hakim the former chairman of the state’s Minorities Commission told Khaleej Times on Thursday that less than a dozen ‘madarasas’ in Maharashtra have opted for state funding.
“When the ‘madarasas’ don’t ask for grants where is the question of derecogn-ising them?” he wondered. “When I was heading the Minorities Com-mission many ‘madarasas’ told me they were not keen on getting government grants.”
Hakim said the move not to rec-ognise these institutions was part of a larger conspiracy by the Hindutva-Sangh forces which the BJP-led government was imple-menting.
The Maharashtra government is undertaking a major survey across the state on Saturday to identify ‘out-of-school’ children and to create a database for im-plementation of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act and to ensure that these stu-dents are brought into the main-stream education sector.
Activists have however con-demned the government for its plan to ink the fingers of children identified as ‘out-of-school’ and described it as violation of human rights.
Some NGOs from Pune and Vidarbha had approached the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court seeking a stay on the survey.
But the bench refused to pass an interim order.The activists claim that stu-dents pursuing ‘open’ and ‘non-formal’ education cannot be branded as ‘out-of-school’.
Minorities welfare minister Eknath Khade had earlier said the government’s aim was to ensure that minority students get the opportunity to come up in life. While ‘madarasas’ provided religious teachings they should also train them in other basic subjects in-cluding science maths and social sciences he said.
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