Board to revive madrasa education system

In a major step towards changing syllabi in nearly 10,000 madrasas across the State, the newly formed Islamic Educational Board of India (IEBI)- Karnataka will introduce mainstream education along with religious studies from the next academic year. The madrasas will henceforth be called Islamic schools.

With the formation of the board two weeks ago, the IEBI will now monitor the activities in the madrasas and will implement guidelines of both Islamic and academic syllabi, inculcating values of Islam as a peace loving and a tolerant religion. Leaders of prominent Muslim bodies representing sunnis, sufis and 10 other organisations will steer the board activities.

“Madrasas are in a state of dissent as there are no prescribed syllabi, especially in Karnataka. Following the successful model of the syllabus in Kerala, we are working on bringing in changes in our state syllabus which will inculcate values of Islam to its students educating them that Islam never promotes violence. Terrorism is un-Islamic and anti-Islamic, and has no religion,” said president of IEBI Sultan Sheik Abdul Khader, a banker by profession. “We have devised syllabus from zero level to class 12 in English, Urdu, Kannada, Malayalam and other Indian languages at all madarasas uniformly throughout. Education on Islam and academics will be imparted. Teachers are being trained over 1 to 3 months at our administrative office as to how to impart such education. As many as 5,000 teachers of various madrasas will be trained in the next five years and in 10 years we are looking at training at least 25,000 teachers” added Mr. Khader.

Islamic Educational Board of India to introduce mainstream education and religious studies