[Reader-list] Fwd: Re: [arkitectindia] Madrasa Education System

Fri Feb 4 09:02:42 IST 2005

Shaheen,
This is a welcome attempt.Keep us posted. In the end
there is a news item on a  Madarsa in Chauri,U.P.
Madarsas do play  a very important role.The government
has its own role to play leading up to this
situation.Urdu has been neglected, and relgious
studies are not given the deserved importance in a
country with such a rich cultural tradition. Perhaps,
the next and more important destination should be
AIMPLB, which fancies itself as speaking for all
Muslims without having any democratic sanction.
regards
Rahul  
http://in.news.yahoo.com//040819/139/2fkyg.html
Hindu students study at a Madrasa
Chauri (UP), Aug 19 (ANI): A "Madrasa" in a village
here has opened its doors for Hindu students, thereby
making a rare but welcome attempt to break away from
religious fundamentalism.

Operating from a mosque in Chauri village, considered
amongst the most communally-sensitive, the Madrasa,
unlike others, has a public school curriculum. The
children here get to learn all subjects from geography
to science, otherwise reviled and often banned from
religious schools.

The morning prayers begin with an ode to Mahatma
Gandhi followed by traditional Islamic teachings and a
patriotic song.

Needless to say, the resonance of children learning
Urdu and Sanskrit together and singing patriotic songs
is a heartwarming sight for a nation ridden by some
dangerously deep religious divides.

"It is different from the way rest of the madrasas
work. Here children from all the castes study, whether
they are Muslims or Hindus alongwith Urdu language
children are also taught English, Hindi and Sanskrit,"
Maulana Ansar Ahmed, the Madarsa head-master said.
ocals said they remained unaffected by the communal
undertones and were more interested in chalking out a
better future for their children. "Children are taught
everything in this madrasa and they are also taught
Urdu so we send them here," Devi Prasad Gaud, a parent
said.

"Here children not only are they educated but they
learn culture, religion and ethics. They are groomed
for a better future, how to give an interview, what is
positive about hygene, we teach all that," Paras Nath
Srivastav, the village head said. (ANI)

--- shaheen ansari <shaheen at mail.ie> wrote:

---------------------------------

--- Begin forwarded message:

From: zubair hudawi <zubyhudawi at yahoo.co.in>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 11:25:00 +0000 (GMT)
To: arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [arkitectindia] Madrasa Education System

Dear Sir,

I am a graduate from an Islamic institution in Kerala
after studying there for 12 years. I have done my BA
and MA in Sociology from Osmania and Madurai Kamaraj
Universities respectively through correspondence while
I was in the Islamic College. I have done my 2nd PG in
Arabic language from JNU and now I am in my second
semester of Mphill in JNU SLL& CS.

I’ve been reading interestingly all mails and comments
from the well doing Arkitectindia and now wants to add
some experiences in to notice.

I studied till the fifth grade in a regular school and
then enrolled at
the Dar ul-Huda Islamic Academy, in Chemmad, in the
Mallapuram district of
northern Kerala. The Dar ul-Huda Islamic Academy,
where I studied, is a good example of how we can
incorporate modern education in the madrasa system.
At the Academy we studied the general Islamic
subjects, along with subjects like English,
Mathematics, Science and History till the twelfth
grade level. This allowed us to appear
as external candidates in the government secondary
school examination. In
addition, we also learnt Urdu, Malayalam and
Comparative Religions. Besides,
we had to learn computers and take part in a range of
extra-curricular
activities, such as games and literary and public
discussion groups. 
By combining traditional Islamic and modern education
in this way, the
Academy trains 'ulama who choose from a range of
careers, and thus need not
only work as imams or preachers in mosques. Some of
the Academy's graduates
are abroad, working in the Gulf. Some have joined
various Malayali
newspapers. Several of them are now studying at
regular universities, many
of them in higher Arabic and Islamic studies, but a
few in other fields
which madrasa graduates earlier rarely entered. Thus,
for instance, a
graduate of the Academy is presently doing his M.Phil
in Sociology at Jawaharlal
Nehru University, where he is working on 'The Crisis
of Tradition and
Modernity Among Muslims' for his thesis. 
In much of the rest of India there is a sharp dualism
between Islamic and
modern education. As a result, students who study in
madrasas have little or
no knowledge of modern subjects. Likewise, those who
study in regular school
have little or no knowledge of Islam. This dualism is
reinforced by the
stance of some traditional 'ulama, who seem to regard
the two forms of
knowledge as distinct from, if not opposed to, each
other, although, as I
see it, any form of beneficial knowledge is legitimate
in Islam.

In Kerala, this dualism has, to a large extent, been
overcome. We have a
unique system of Islamic education in Kerala. Every
local Muslim community has its own madrasa, which is
affiliated to a state-level madrasa board run by one
or the other Muslim
organisation. The madrasa boards prepare the
syllabus and textbooks that are used by all the
madrasas affiliated to them.
The boards also conduct the annual examinations and
send out regular
inspection teams. 

The timings of the madrasas are adjusted in such a way
that allows the
children to attend regular school as well. In this
way, by the time they
finish their school education most Muslim children in
Kerala have a fairly
good grounding in Islamic studies as well. I don't
think there is any
similar system in any other Indian state, where,
generally, if you want to
study Islam you have to go without modern education.
In Kerala, fortunately,
we do not have to make a choice between Islamic or
modern education. Our
children can study Islam while at the same time
carrying on with their
regular studies as well. After they graduate from
regular school, if they
want to specialise in Islamic studies they can join an
Arabic College, and
if they want to go in for modern education they can
enrol in a university. Nowadays we can see a number
institutions continuing the combined study up to
degree or PG level facilitating the students to study
both religious and modern education. 

What I want to mention here is that Muslims see the
religious education most important and necessary to
keep the religious practices in their life. Eventhough
nowadays the study has become to produce a particular
so-called clergy class and oriented to do jobs with
religion, the islamic education is religiously
compulsory to every one to regulate the life of a
believer and to mould a good human being who is good
to humanity. In the prevailing situation we can or
have to preach the need and necessity of modern
education in a cordial and convincing manner.
Unfortunately many who ventured earlier failed due to
an accusing and blaming attitude with out considering
the social milieu they live in and the cultural past
they came through. 

A model which allow the students go ahead to achieve
best schooling and after with that of keeping
religious study would be identical for the betterment
of Madrasa education utilising madrasa graduates
studying in our universities because they would be
better to impart and make understand the necessity of
modern education to the concerned authorities.

One thing is more important, that Madreasa graduates
are not the potential terrorists they mostly keep kind
hearts and minds and they are understood so by others
because most of them are unwilling to interact
especially with non-muslims due to complexes or
habituated solitude. The potential terrorists are the
common men who are deprived of even religious
education, keeping the emotional and inflammable
belief and touch with religion. So We cannot deny
religious education but we must strive for making
their prospects better with imparting good and
suitable modern education.

Offering all the kind services which I can

Your Friend 

Zubair Hudawi K

104, Jhelum Hostel

JNU

9868304304

Sadbhav Mission <sadbhavmission at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
Dear Shaheen,
Your have raised an important issue. Three realities
must be kept
in mind:
1) Madarsas are the only avenues of education for most
vhildren who go
there. In Yamuna Pushta slums I had made efforts to
get children 
enrolled in govt schools but there was no room for
many of these children. Then Janam patri was a
problem. Further, parents did not expect themselves to
be able to educate their child to a level where he/
she could find a
job. Hence motivation for formal schooling was
dampened.

2) Poor children educated in madarsas are never
fundamentalists. Poverty
as a class deters them from being fundamentalists.
Fundamentalism is a
middle class and elite class mentality and political
doctrine.

3) Madarsa education in most svhools, where poor
children study, is too
minimal to develop any substantial understanding of
society, religion,
science, maths, langyage or cultivating any technical
skills. This must 
be upgraded and better organized. Institutions like
Nadva and Darul Uloom
excel in a few of these of these areas, specially
religion, Arabic and
Urdu. The education however should be more broad
based.

Best regards
Vipin

monam khan <monamkhan2002 at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
      "Madrasa: Concept, Relevance and
               Scope for Modernisation"

Friends 

This should be read in the continuation of Dr. Shaheen
Ansari's mail dated February 1, 2005.  Some people may
raise questions  about its importance in discussing
here.  So, I think, it is important to state about the
relevance of this discussion.

Every Muslim locality has a mosque and majority of
them have Madrasas.  We at Ark Foundation believe that
instead of building new infrastructure we should work
on  reconstructing the already existing Madrasas in
the country. This is not only economical but
practically viable also. We can get teachers and
students easily. What we need is to reorient old
teachers of the Madrasas and appoint a couple of new
teachers with the background of modern education
system.

Relevance of the discussion also lies in analyzing
importance of Madrasas in majority of the Muslim
society. In view of the ongoing changes in the social,
cultural, economic, and political environment drastic
changes is required in Madrasa system of education so
that Indian Muslims could come to terms with the
changing needs of contemporary Indian society. 

It is true that the  Indian Madrasas  have produced a
number of world famous Islamic scholars, but lakhs of
Muslims educated from these Madrasas are deprived of
the job opportunities because of their ignorance of
modern knowledge.  This create a vicious circle as
majority of the students going to Madrasas are from
economically weaker section of the society. Those who
can afford send their children to mainstream schools
including public schools.

The debate is justified in a sense that it will
provide a balanced synthesis of the classical and the
modern method of teaching. The concern will be to seek
ways in which Muslims can learn to integrate the
revealed fundamentals and the ever transforming world
of modern knowledge. It will show how the changes do
not involve the dilution of the traditional thought,
but the affirmation of the dynamic nature of the
faith. 

Modernisation is understood primarily in relation to
the need for modern subjects in Madrasa- not just for
their own sake, but also in order to further
understand the deeper implications of the Quran. A
deeper study of history of the wider world for
instance, is one such areas of improvement. Likewise,
the study of social sciences, Hindi (national language
of India), English (the language of the world) is
necessary in order that the graduates feel at home in
the world they live in and interact with. At the
primary and intermediate levels, the pupils need to be
exposed to key subjects taught in the alternative
system of education. 

Modernisation is also important in terms of promoting
employment oriented programmes. These are programmes
through which the pupils will be given technical and
professional training as well as religious, in order
to be able to maintain themselves and their families.
It is also making of Madrasa system of education
relevant to modern times.  

So on behalf of Ark Foundation I would like to request
you to kindly throw some light on it. 

Thanks

Monam Khan

Coordinator

Research Team

Modernisation of Madrasa Education

Ark Foundation

PS: Friends we are looking for innovative ideas but we
will also welcome ideas which you may have come across
in books, journals/magazines and newspapers. You can
also help us by sending names of references or web
links on the above topic.  The purpose is to learn and
develop a model for the modernisation of Madrasa
education system. So the ideas should not be
necessarily  your own creation but relevant to cause
or the topic under discussion.

shaheen ansari <shaheen at mail.ie> wrote: 
        Madrasa Education System: A debate

Friends 

In recent years Madrasas have attracted immense
attention in India, more so than mosques and other
endowed institutions of India. This has partially been
on account of the general perception that
fundamentalism, Islamization and extremist violence
stem from the Madrasa. Orthodoxy, religious
conservatism and obsession to medieval identity
remained the main focus of Madrasa education in India.
And this is the point from where the demand for debate
on modernization of Madrasa on Indian soil gets
strengthen.

Before reaching at any conclusion we should ask
ourselves: 

      Is the perception per se is correct? or 

      Is it a creation of media? or 

      Is it propagated by people with vested interest?

Well, in JNU people have different opinion. To
understand this a group of students, coordinated by
Monam Khan (monamkhan2002 at yahoo.co.in), has identified
six Madrasa in South Delhi. They have selected South
Delhi because it is close to both JNU and IIT, from
where we draw most of our volunteers for the programme
called "Two Hours A Week". I should tell here that in
this programme every volunteer gives at least two
hours a week for the development of our
underprivileged brethren. Monam is taking this
initiative not only to understand the above mentioned
perception but also to initiate the experiment of
Modernisation of Madrasa Education in India. 

We know that every individual carries his/her own
socioeconomic, religious and educational background
for his/her understanding on various issues. Several
volunteers have come out with different argument to
introduce different kind of courses/subjects in order
to modernise Madrasas. There was a long debate on the
issue and before reaching at any conclusion we decided
to share it with the esteemed members of
arkitectindia, an online group discussion forum and
seek their opinion.

Some of us believe that the Madrasas are playing a
vital role in literacy movement. It is the real
foundation of Muslim education in India. Now the
questions to ponder are:

      Do the people who run these institutions lack
clarity of vision about the present day economic and
social needs of Indian Muslims? 

      Are they playing a positive role in the scheme
of their education?. 

      Can Madrasas be converted into vehicles for
communication of secular and modern knowledge so that
Muslim participation in civil society increases? 

      Is it possible to empower the entire community
through the modernisation of Madrasas? 

Though we will welcome discussion on concept and
relevance of Madrasa but we would like to focus on the
scope for modernization of Madrasa. We invite
suggestion and views for:

      Understanding Madrasa Education System 

      Process or method for its modernization 

      New syllabus taking into account the changed
conditions of modern life and 

      Steps to improve economic conditions of Madrasa
students through vocational training. 

Now the forum is open for debate and discussion on
"Madrasa: Concept, Relevance and Scope for
Modernisation". Can you spare a few minutes for this
cause? Then kindly educate us on the above issue.

Thanking you 
Yours sincerely
Shaheen Ansari

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