No Board Affiliation, No Funds: Govt Tells Madrasas, Plans Unique IDs for Geo Tagging

New Delhi: The HRD Ministry is working on a plan to revamp madrasa education in the country under the Scheme to Provide Quality Education in Madrasas (SPQEM), under which the institutions would have to to get affiliated to either madrasa boards or state boards to be eligible for central government funds.

Sources in the HRD ministry said that states have submitted proposals, which are being studied, and that based on the budget available the plan to give a makeover to madrasa education will be taken forward.

“The SPQEM is aimed at bringing about qualitative improvement in madrasa education and enable students to attain standards of the national education system in formal subjects. The government is planning to make affiliation to the madrasa board or state school boards compulsory,” a source said.

There was an appraisal of schemes done for 2018-2020, in which SPQEM was also appraised. The guidelines have been put up for approval and once the approval is in place it would then be made public. The new guidelines have been drafted for three years. This is to make the madrasas work like schools.

SPQEM guidelines assure modernisation of Madrasas with minimum government interference.

“The goal is to make them function like schools. There is a component of encouraging skill education in the scheme and will be pursued with more focus with the new guidelines, the idea is to provide mainstream education," said the source.

Under the revamp, the government is also planning to map madrasas in the country based on their Global Positioning System. “For this, the HRD ministry is planning to make Unique Identification for madrasas to trace their physical location via GPS,” added the source.

The government said it was being done to ensure accountability in respect of funds released by the government and that the same is applicable for other institutions.

Last year, the ministry had asked the madrasas covered by the SPQEM to provide their GPS location. Those that did not provide the GPS details had to wait for the teachers’ payment, News18.com has learnt.

Some madrasas are likely to oppose the move as an affiliation is perceived by them as “government interference” in their autonomous functioning.

The existing features of the scheme enable madrasas to strengthen capacities for teaching of the formal curriculum subjects like Science, Mathematics, Language, Social Studies etc through enhanced payment of teacher honorarium.

The past modifications on teaching materials have encouraged linkage of madrasas with National Institute for Open Schooling (NIOS), as accredited centers for providing formal education, which will enable children studying in such madrasas to get certification for Classes 5, 8, 10 and 12.

The government is of the opinion that affiliation to any board will help the students to progress to higher levels of education. Provision of Rs 5 lakh has been kept for strengthening and activities of madrasa boards also, said the HRD ministry.

To promote education in Muslim-dominated areas, the government is planning to open more schools under newly merged schemes, now called Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan.