NEW DELHI, 3 June — The madarassas (Muslim religious schools) painted by Sangh Parivar as a “hotbed of sedition” have humbled government schools by achieving excellent results in this years middle school examinations.
The madarassas in Rajasthan have achieved 90 to 100 percent results as against 65 percent results in the government-run schools. The budget allocated to the 619 madarassas recognized by the Rajasthan state government is 7.8 million only. There are an estimated 5,000 madarassas in Rajasthan, many surviving on charity.
Despite these limitations, 60 percent of madarassa students have secured first division with distinction as against 20 percent of the government school students. Among successful madarassa students, girls are more than 50 percent.
During the nineties, a random sampling of 537 madarassa (502 for boys and 35 for girls) in different states revealed some interesting facts.
Five of the girl madarassas had students from other countries — the United Kingdom, Canada, USA, France, South America, the Bahamas, Zambia and the West Indies.
Twenty-five madarassas produce journals of which 25 are in Urdu, five in Arabic and one in Hindi. Seven of the surveyed madarassas have begun computer education and 16 have science laboratories. Some also conduct correspondence courses.
Earlier, teachers were largely untrained and received pathetically low salaries. Lately however, recruitment of trained teachers with approved pay scales has begun. A few madarassas are also providing in-service training for teachers. The average salary of a madarassa teacher is still about 1500 rupees per month.
