Steps under way to mainstream madrasas, Azam Tarar informs Senate

ISLAMABAD: Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told the Senate on Thursday the government was taking steps to bring madrasas into the mainstream education system of the country.

He welcomed a proposal made by Senator Samina Mumtaz that the director general of religious education (DGRE) should be made more active, and there should be reforms in seminaries. She also suggested that registration of seminaries should not be ‘optional’ but mandatory. The minister said he would convey the suggestion to the quarters concerned. He maintained that there was no data with the DGRE on non-registered seminaries. During the Question-Hour, Senator Samina Mumtaz raised the issue of violence and rape incidents in some unregistered seminaries. She said teachers in unregistered madrasas were untrained and rape cases were also reported in madaris, underlining the need for proper management of seminaries. The lawmaker contended that untrained teachers in madaris tend to unleash violence against students and incidents of rape also surface in the media.

The Federal Ministry of Education submitted a written reply on registration of madrasas, stating that the number of madrasas registered by the Directorate General of Religious Education across the country was 17,738.

The number of students studying in these registered madrasas was 2,249,520, of which 664,065 students were studying in Punjab, 188,182 in Sindh, and 71,815 students were studying in Balochistan, whereas 1,283,024 students were studying in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 26,787 students in Azad Kashmir, 11,301 in Islamabad and 4,346 students in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The ministry said there was no direct funding for these madrasas, while the DGRE provided over a thousand trained teachers to 598 registered madrasas.

Replying to another question, the law minister said the system would not work without keeping the size of the government according to its requirement, while conceding that ministries and public sector institutions were overstaffed. The minister regretted that political issues were made when it comes to right-sizing of ministries, as over-staffing is a matter of grave concern.