The Uttar Pradesh government is working on a new policy to regulate the madrasas prevalent in the state. The UP cabinet held a meeting on July 19 to discuss a new policy to further regulate them.
There are 16,461 madrasas in the state, out of which 560 receive government grants. This is in addition to the state government’s plans to modernize madrasas. It is currently running several schemes to offer modern education along with religious education in madrasas.
Uttar Pradesh government had earlier said that it would constitute a committee to fix the minimum age for admission in madrasas on the lines of various education boards including the CBSE and ICSE.
Under the new policy, the government also aims at making admissions more transparent and emphasize science education.
Further, new teachers will be appointed in the traditional educational institutes. As per reports, efforts are being made to hire Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), qualified teachers, only in madrasas. Only those teachers who have qualified in the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) will be allowed to teach at Madrasas, as per a proposed plan being examined by the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government. Notably, this plan will be implemented under the Madrasa Modernisation Scheme of the state government, which will change the rules for appointing teachers in Madrasas. Under the said scheme, 80% modern education and 20% decent education will be provided to Muslim students across the state.
As per reports, this step aims to improve the teaching standards at Madrasas and introduce a learning process that will focus more on subjects like Hindi, English, Science, Mathematics, and Social Science. Also, this scheme will promote a fair and transparent selection of teachers for teaching at different madrasas.
Presently, teachers at madrasas are appointed by the individual management of madrasas and the minimum qualification required to be a teacher is graduation and a B.Ed degree. In some cases, teachers don’t even possess a Bachelor of Education degree. The larger learning process is based on deeni education, and the remaining 20% is modern education. However, if this change is implemented, a separate exam is known as “TET” will be held by the department, and only after qualifying in the teacher’s eligibility exam, will one be allowed to teach students in Madrasas.
Earlier, in 2018, the UP government introduced the NCERT curriculum in Madrasas but did not change the teaching conditions as the performance of students in science and social sciences remained below standard. Currently, there are around 560 aided madrasas in the state with 8,400 teachers in total. With the new scheme, the madrasa management committee will continue to be responsible for hiring, but candidates without qualifying in TET will not be given jobs at madrasas in Uttar Pradesh.