Revision as of 15:32, 4 January 2018

Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrassas, i) Funds released, 2009-15; ii) States with highest number of madrassa covered under the scheme (since 2009-10); Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, August 8, 2016

Islamic holidays

Friday holiday

2017: Assam breaks a British-era tradition

Prabin Kalita & BB Goswami, BREAKING TRADITION - BJP govt makes madrassas junk holiday, Dec 10, 2016: The Times of India

Breaking a British-era tradition, majority of madrassas in the state remained open on Friday after the BJP-led state government declared the weekday holiday as illegal.

Education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who brought to the fore this tradition followed by madrassas in the state without government sanction, on Thursday said, “From next Friday , if any madrassa remains shut, the head teacher will be placed under suspension immediately .“ According to the state go vernment portal, there are 707 recognised and provincialised madrassas in the state. It was during the British rule in 1934 when the provincial govern ment of Assam established Madrassa Education Board in Sylhet (undivided India) with nine madrassas to educate the Muslims. Friday has been a holiday since then. After Independence, the institution was renamed as State Madrassa Education Board, Assam.

Sarma said governmentrun madrassas will only have an hour's break for the `jumma namaz' (Friday prayers) instead of a day's holiday .

 UP madrassas told to cut Muslim holidays/ 2017

Yusra Husain, UP madrassas told to cut Muslim holidays, January 3, 2018: The Times of India

After making it mandatory for madrassas in Uttar Pradesh to render the national anthem and videograph it on Independence Day, the Yogi government on Tuesday came up with an annual calendar that reduces discretionary holidays around Muslim festivals while making it

compulsory for madrassas to remain closed on festivals of other faiths. Clerics that TOI spoke to expressed unhappiness at the move.

Hitherto, madrassas in UP were closed only during Muslim festivals with the exception of Holi and Ambedkar Jayanti. But the new calendar marks Mahavir Jayanti, Buddh Purnima, Raksha Bandhan, Mahanavmi, Diwali, Dussehra and Christmas as holidays.

UP madrassas get 7 new holidays

While seven new holidays have been added, 10 discretionary holidays allowed to madrassas for festivals like Id-ul-Zuha and Muharram have been reduced to four days. Also, these cannot be taken as a cumulative, but one day at a time when clubbed with a festival.

Registrar of the UP Madrassa Board Rahul Gupta, explaining the move, said, “The 10-day holiday used to be at madrassas’ discretion, but now this is predetermined and distributed round the birthdays of great leaders. It’s important for students to know who these people were.”

“It has also been done to bring madrassas on a par with basic school education following the general rule of law,” he added.

A madrassa official TOI spoke to was unhappy with the proposal. Eijaz Ahmed, president, Islamic Madarsa Modernisation Teachers’ Association, said, “Madrasas are religious institutions that do require different kinds of leave around a number of minority events for which the former discretionary leave was used. There is no problem in addition of holidays of other faiths, but it is totally wrong to cut down the ten discretionary special leaves.”

Government aid, recognition

2017: UP to geo-tag madrassas

Rohan Dua, UP madrassas under Yogi govt lens, August 30, 2017: The Times of India

To Be Geo-Tagged, Will Have To Give Govt Layouts, Teachers' Bank Details

All madrassas across Uttar Pradesh will be geo-tagged by the state government through a GPS-based service as part of what the BJPled dispensation has described as its efforts to weed out fake students and staff. In addition, the state government has also asked madrassas to share maps of classrooms, photographs of the building, and the teachers' bank account details. The institutes have also been told to upload each employee's Aadhaar card details on a government portal.

The order, a copy of which is with TOI, was issued on July 31. The government has directed the registrar of the UP Madrassa Shiksha Parishad to include all the state's 16,000 recognised madrassas in the geo-tagging initiative. Consequently, each madrassa will be identified by a `unified district information system for education (UDISE)' code.

Issued by principal secretary Monika Garg, the order states that each madrassa would have to be registered with a newly launched government website -madarsaboard.upsdc.gov.in -by Octo ber 15 to retain their recognition and state government aid.

“Development“ has been listed as one of the eight main reasons behind the move.“The launch of the portal and other services is to ensure development, competency-mapping, simplification of process and improvement in edu cation quality of madrassas,“ says the order.

According to the order, the move aims to “curtail duplication of teaching staff as well as beneficiary students“.The bank accounts of the teaching staff and educationrelated officials at the madrassas will be verified through a public finance management system.

“Only after the financial details of teachers and staff have been collected and their bank accounts verified, (will) their salaries be disbursed,“ the order states. As part of the initiative, each madrassa will also have to state its building layout, area of campus, etc on the website. “There would not be any tweaking in the data related to the madrassas as all district minority officers (DMOs) will be able to lock the details with a digital signature. No madrassa will be able to alter the data related to any madrassa after thorough verification,“ the order states.

Ahead of this Independence Day , the Yogi Aditya Nath government had issued a controversial order making videography of celebrations mandatory for madrassas, but not government schools.

2016-17: 50,000 madrassa teachers not paid by Centre

Anuja Jaiswal & Shivani Azad, 50k madrassa teachers not paid by Centre for two years, December 25, 2017: The Times of India

Over 50,000 madrassa teachers in 16 states, including UP, Uttarakhand, MP and Jharkhand, registered under the Centre’s Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrassas (SPQEM) have not been paid the central component of their salaries for two years now, forcing many to quit their posts.

SPQEM was introduced by the Union HRD ministry in 2008-09 to promote quality education at madrassas. Under it, madrassa teachers are entitled to salaries to be paid by the Centre. Graduate teachers are paid Rs 6,000 per month, while, PG teachers are paid Rs 12,000, which constitute 75% and 80%, respectively, of their total pay. The respective states are to pay the remainder of the salaries.

Madrassa teachers plan protests in UP

President of Akhil Bharatiya Madrassa Adhunikikaran Shikshak Sangh (ABMASS) Muslim Raza Khan said, “Half of the 18,000 madrassas in India are in UP, with around 25,000 teachers. Across 16 states, teachers have not received the central government component of their salaries for the second year now. In some states, they haven’t been paid for three years. We plan a protest in Lucknow on January 8.”

Confirming that salaries had not been paid, registrar of the UP Madrassa Board, Rahul Gupta said, “Rs 296.31 crore was not released by the Union ministry for 2016-17. In 2017-18 so far, the funds have not been released either.”

“The Union ministry has been giving states various reasons for this situation, from non-submission of utilisation certificate by the states to not having Unified District Information System for Education code for these institutions,” said Halim Khan, former member, CGIAC.