Madrasas Under Scrutiny: Child Rights Panel Calls For End To State Funding And Closure Of Madrasa Boards—What You Need To Know

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has urged all State and Union territory governments to shut down madrasa boards, halt their funding, and enrol students attending Madrasas in formal schools.

"It has been recommended that State funding to the Madrasas and Madrasa Boards be stopped across all States/UTs and Madrasa Boards should be discontinued and closed down," NCPCR chairperson Priyank Kanoongo said in a letter to the chief secretaries of all States and Union territories.

“It has also been recommended that all non-Muslim children be taken out of madrasas and admitted in schools for receiving fundamental education as per the RTE Act, 2009. Also, children from the Muslim community who are attending madrasa, whether recognized or unrecognized, are enrolled in formal schools and receive education of the prescribed time and curriculum as per the RTE Act, 2009," Kanoongo added in the letter dated 11 October.

According to Kanoongo, exempting religious institutions from the RTE Act led to the “exclusion of children attending only religious institutions from the formal education system”, and that “while Articles 29 and 30 (of the constitution) protected minority rights, children in these schools were deprived of equal access to quality education under the RTE Act".

The NCPR chief added that what was intended to empower children ultimately created new layers of “deprivation and discrimination due to wrong interpretation.”

Along with the letter, the NCPCR sent a report titled ‘Guardians of Faith or Oppressors of Rights: Constitutional Rights of Children vs Madrasas', which claims that madrasas “violate the educational rights of children".

The report claims that the curriculum in madrasas is not “as per the RTE Act” and the NCPCR found “abnormalities” in the curriculum – “objectionable content in Diniyat books” in the curriculum, teaching of texts that profess the “supremacy of Islam”, and the Bihar Madrasa Board prescribing books that are “published in Pakistan.”

The report further claims that in the NCPCR’s interactions with state authorities it found that madrasas lack trained and qualified teachers as prescribed by the National Council for Teacher Education, and that the teachers in madrasas are “largely dependent upon the conventional methods used in learning Quran and other religious texts.”

It adds that the RTE Act specifies qualifications for teachers and the pupil-teacher ratio, and in the absence of these provisions, children are “left in the hands of unskilled teachers.”

The report claims that these institutions impart Islamic education and are “not following the basic principle of secularism”; madrasas “deprive children” of facilities and entitlements which are provided to students studying in regular schools, like uniforms, books, and midday meals; schools that provide formal education are required to follow norms prescribed by the RTE Act, and with no such mechanism available for madrasas, they lack accountability and transparency in their functioning; madrasa boards are “providing Islamic religious education and instructions to non-Muslims and Hindus which is also a blatant violation of Article 28 (3) of the Constitution of India.”

It adds that state governments need to take immediate steps to remove Hindu and non-Muslim children from madrasas.

The NCPCR in its report said that in June, it had requested the Secretary of the Department of School Education to direct states to inspect madrasas with UDISE codes and revoke recognition if they failed to comply with RTE norms.

In July, the Ministry followed up, asking state education departments for inspection reports.

The NCPCR report criticised madrasas for having an “arbitrary mode of working” without a standardised curriculum and called for non-Muslim children to be admitted to formal schools.

It also recommended halting state funding to madrasas and shutting down madrasa boards.

In a submission to the Supreme Court last month, the NCPCR argued that madrasa education is not comprehensive and violates the RTE Act.

The apex court is currently hearing appeals challenging the Allahabad High Court order which had declared the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education Act, 2004 “unconstitutional” on the ground that it violated “the principle of secularism” and fundamental rights under Article 14 of the Constitution.

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