In an attempt to bring standardised education to the students at madrassas in the national Capital, the Delhi Minority Commission (DMC) is set to certify them. The move will allow them to avail Centre ’s several schemes for minorities, including the Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrassas (SPQEM).
The SPQEM has been on papers in Delhi ever since the process was started by the Sheila Dikshit government in 2012.
The commission will soon start the process of inviting madrassas to apply for the certification. It will set some selection parameters like infrastructure, teacher-student ratio and the level of degree being issued by them.
Presently, there are around 3000 odd madrassas operating in the Capital and majority of them offer religious subjects along with basic Hindi, Urdu and primary-level Mathematics.
In the absence of any specific board for madrassas, they neither have a standardised syllabus nor can they avail the benefits from Centre’s SPQEM scheme, for which it is mandatory to be certified by the state board or the government.
According to Delhi Minority Commission chairperson, Zafarul Islam Khan, the move will help the madrassas avail the benefits under the SPQEM, including trained teachers for subjects like Mathematics, Science and Computer. It will also help in strengthening libraries, establishing computer and science labs, among others. “Handful of madrassas offer these facilities and subjects to the students in Delhi. But, they will start getting funds for all these facilities once they will be certified,” he said.
Khan said that the then Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government had asked the commission to commence the process in a bid to implement SPQEM in Delhi in 2012, however, it could not take off due to administrative reasons. “We are finally starting the process so that over 3 lakh students studying in these madrassas are not left behind,” he said.
Hailing the move, activists say that the move will help bring standard education to the madrassas, where the students mostly belong to marginalised section of the society.“Bringing madrassas under some organised system will help them flourish as they will start getting funds from the government instead of being dependent on donations,” said social activist Firoz Bakht Ahmed.
