Madressah reform continues to be a major challenge. Since the state is not in a position to outrightly ban madressahs and immediately replace them with regular schools, attempts to mainstream them by encouraging them to incorporate worldly subjects are widely considered the only other alternative.

However, actual enrolment trends seem to go against this conventional wisdom. Moreover, attempts to convince madressahs in Pakistan to include worldly knowledge in their curriculum have a long history, going all the way back to the 1960s, and the results have never been encouraging. It is therefore worth going beyond the standard tropes and ask why this idea has repeatedly failed in the past, and what needs to be done differently.

Before we begin though, let us clearly state at the outset that the issue is not with religious education or instruction by itself. The problem arises when such instruction involves extremist interpretations, especially when it takes the place of regular schooling, so that instead of a well-rounded curriculum, students are almost exclusively taught religion only, with no knowledge of worldly subjects.

There is no issue with part-time religious education at a mosque or religious academy, as long as it does not involve an extremist ideology. There is also no issue with people dedicating their career to the study and teaching of religion, provided it is by going through the properly regulated mainstream education system by obtaining an MA or PhD in Islamiat, after well-rounded basic schooling, just as those pursuing other careers opt for higher degrees in their disciplines.

Madressahs in Pakistan operate a parallel education system that mostly produces unemployable graduates and has often been linked to extremism. Over the decades, various governments — both democratic and dictatorial — have attempted to coax them into the mainstream, with negligible success. The question to ask is, why? Could the basic framing of the issue be flawed?

First, madressah enrolment numbers are considerably smaller compared to the general perception.

OUT OF PROPORTION

According to a landmark study of enrolment trends in religious schools by Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Tristan Zajonc in 2005, based on Pakistan’s Household Integrated Economic Surveys from 1991, 1998 and 2005, and the 1998 census data, less than one percent of enrolled children were studying at madressahs instead of regular schools.

Out of these, only 25 percent parents sent all their children to madressahs, while the remaining 75 percent sent at least one sibling of their madressah-going kids to regular schools as well.

The paper also noted that this was in line with similar trends in Europe from the 18th and 19th centuries, where many families would send one child to a church, where they would be taught religion and prepared for a career in the clergy, and others to a regular school or not enroll them at all.

Moreover, the study found that, understandably, the madressah enrolment ratio was relatively higher in areas where there was an absence of public and regular private schools. But even in such places, the most prominent effect was that of parents opting not to send their children to any schools or madressahs rather than going for madressahs in big numbers.

Even in areas close to Afghanistan, which were found to have the highest madressah enrolment, there were less than 7.5 percent of enrolled children in madressahs. In short, madressahs were by no means the most popular option among parents.

While this study is about two decades old, recent Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) are more or less consistent with it, albeit with madressah enrolment rates slightly higher, at around two percent. However, the minor differences could well be due to differences in counting strategies or definitions.

A PROBLEM NONETHELESS

The small percentage does not, however, warrant the simplistic conclusion that madressahs are a non-issue. Even a small percentage translates into large absolute numbers in hundreds of thousands of children. And the connection between madressahs and hardcore militancy, sectarianism and extremism is also well-established.

What the small percentage suggests instead is that the best mainstreaming policy is to put more resources into mainstream schools and give people better options. It also tells us that, from an education policy standpoint, the desire to mainstream the one percent or so should not be a driver or factor in the policies applied to the rest of the education system, in an endeavour to bring a common curriculum or set of standards, such as the Single National Curriculum (SNC).

This is not to say that investing elsewhere will automatically result in all madressahs disappearing or turning into regular schools. But the point is that it can help considerably reduce the scale of the problem. Giving funds to madressahs as part of a mainstreaming programme, on the other hand, amounts to taking resources away from building and financing regular schools, and helping madressahs enrol more children.

But what about the existing madressahs that remain, even if the government expands regular schooling options? Can they be mainstreamed by convincing them to incorporate worldly subjects in their curriculum and toning down their extremism? Here, a brief overview of history can help.

MAINSTREAMING EFFORTS IN THE PAST

The first mainstreaming attempt was made by Gen Ayub Khan’s government in 1962. It formed a committee to look into the curricula of madressahs and give recommendations on the introduction of subjects that would be relevant for the mainstream economy. The committee recommended the introduction of subjects such as mathematics and social sciences, but the majority of madressahs rejected these proposals.

In the ensuing decade, the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-led government decided not to press madressahs on the curriculum and even offered some concessions in terms of accepting madressah certificates and degrees for certain government jobs, thus increasing the employability of madressah graduates.

The same Bhutto-led government also encouraged funding by Arab countries for the promotion of religious material. Consequently, the number of new madressahs picked up in the 1970s, especially in parts of south Punjab, which were being increasingly visited by royal guests from the Middle East.

The Gen Ziaul Haq regime came up with another report in 1979, with very similar recommendations to the 1962 one, about mainstreaming madressahs by incorporating worldly subjects. These recommendations were again mostly rejected by madressah leaders.

The same Zia period also saw a substantial growth in the number of madressahs, and the introduction of the militancy factor in the wake of the Afghan war after the Soviet invasion.

The second Benazir Bhutto government (1993-96) took some tentative steps towards stricter regulation, such as banning the entry of Arab students to madressahs and requiring all foreign students and their madressahs to obtain no objection certificates. It also instructed zakat committees to stop providing funds to madressahs without adequate scrutiny, and expressed the intention to introduce audits, curriculum reform and mandatory registration, though none of this ever got implemented.

The second Nawaz Sharif government (1997-99) announced an education policy in 1998, which again proposed the introduction of subjects such as mathematics, economics, Pakistan studies, English and general science in madressahs. It also recommended foreign scholarships for madressah graduates to study any aspect of Islam.

Next was the era of Gen Pervez Musharraf, who issued an ordinance in 2001 (before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001) for setting up a board to regulate madressahs. The board was to introduce subjects such as English, mathematics, computer science, economics, law and Pakistan studies in their curriculum and to set up some model madressahs.

As this issue got greater impetus after 9/11, Musharraf promulgated another ordinance which, among other things, required madressahs to register with the government and introduced restrictions on foreign funding and students. For this, he set up the Pakistan Madressah Education Board (PMEB), but only 500 of the more than 30,000 such traditional Islamic seminaries across the country applied for registration.

Musharraf also promised funding for madressahs that were willing to introduce worldly subjects and three model madressahs were established under the PMEB. However, these efforts again did not bear any fruit and were widely resisted by madressahs.

The talk of mainstreaming and regulating madressahs has continued since then in one form or another, such as in the National Internal Security Policy (2014-18), the National Action Plan (2014) and, most recently, the Imran Khan government’s Single National Curriculum (2021), which also aimed to bring madressahs under its ambit.

The result remains the same, ie madressahs are, as usual, resisting the adoption of any mainstream curriculum or set of standards.

A RIGID VIEW OF EDUCATION

The common thread throughout these various experiments has been the fact that madressahs have a totally different view of education and are not interested in teaching worldly subjects. If they were, they would not be running on their current model and would have already incorporated worldly disciplines on their own a long time ago.

Attempts to mainstream them by offering various carrots are based on the wishful thinking that, if they are offered some incentives, they will be ready to sign up for such a project. In reality, madressah leaders do not share such a vision and have also become very skillful at double dealing.

They cleverly enter into discussions about mainstreaming, where they gladly accept any concessions and funding offered to them under an illusion of reform, but never fulfil their side of the bargain. Nor are they willing to dial down on any extremist content.

Deep down, all of us know this reality, but since banning madressahs is not possible, many of us continue to hope that, perhaps, madressahs can eventually be mainstreamed, by convincing them to incorporate some worldly knowledge to make their graduates employable and less extreme.

The question is, does it make sense to keep pursuing a pseudo-solution that only perpetuates the problem, just for the sake of appearing to do something about it?

Even if some madressahs incorporate some worldly content, and this is a big if, it can only be very limited in scope, since the primary focus will still be on religious education, and that too with mostly extremist rather than progressive interpretations. How employable can that make their graduates?

In a competitive economy, where even graduates of regular universities don’t find jobs very easily, which employers are willing to hire madressah graduates who have studied a bit of computer science or math on the side as part of some mainstreaming programme?

As a sample, ask any educated professional who passionately argues with you in favour of mainstreaming, how many madressah graduates they have been willing to hire in their own work.

TURNING OFF THE TAP

The reality is that madressahs cannot be mainstreamed with some minor tinkering within their current model. Funds and concessions dished out in this vain pursuit, however, are a recipe for perpetuating the problem.

When madressahs are offered money, it helps sustain them financially, which allows them to recruit more students and produce more extremists with no employable skills. Every rupee provided to a madressah is a rupee taken away from the mainstream education system, where it could have been better spent.

With most parents preferring to send their children to regular schools and 75 percent of even madressah-going children having at least one sibling in a regular school, the state should be trying to encourage all parents to put all their kids in the mainstream education system.

In the long run, there is only one way the madressah problem can be solved. The demand for their product — in terms of willing parents who enrol their children, and the supply of funds in the form of private and public sector donations — needs to decline, making them financially unviable.

It is only then that some of the madressahs might read the writing on the wall and turn towards transforming themselves in the direction of mainstream schools, albeit with a somewhat conservative leaning, with the majority of others getting phased out.

The state’s policies should be centred around creating the conditions for such a transition. This means directing more funds towards the mainstream education system and gently nudging society in a direction where fewer and fewer parents opt for putting their kids in madressahs. Secondly, it requires diverting an increasing number of those who donate funds to madressahs towards redirecting their charity towards regular schools.

It also means countering the extremist mindset that ideologically attracts some people toward madressahs to the point of enrolling their children in them or donating to them instead of opting for regular schools. And that, of course, can only happen when the state makes a clear break from all security policies and political antics in which it has been using and promoting extremists and militants for myopic goals, only to pay a heavy price for such misadventures later.

The writer is a physicist. X: @AqilSajjad7

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 22nd, 2024