Pakistan's madrassas thriving amid poverty

from The Toronto Star

Sonya Fatah
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

KARACHI, Pakistan–A class full of children – all of them boys – sit bent over their books, rocking back and forth as they collectively repeat after their instructor.

Mufti Naeem smiles as he watches the scene on one of four security monitors on his office desk at the Jamia Binoria, a madrassa, or religious seminary, in Karachi's northern district.

This is one of Karachi's allegedly reformed madrassas, where Islamic and secular subjects are taught to the 4,000 students at its sprawling campus.

In 2002 the Pakistani government launched a five-year program called the Madrassa Reforms Project, a post-9/11 directive aimed at modernizing religious seminaries by broadening their curricula, establishing educational standards and reining in the militant ones. With suicide attacks on the rise in Pakistan, many fear that more madrassas will become breeding grounds for extremist ideologies.

Yet, five years later, the program has been discontinued.

Officials estimate there are about 13,000 madrassas across the country with fewer than 2 million students enrolled. But many observers say there are likely more than 20,000 madrassas.

"None of these madrassas are registered or will bother to register," said Muhammad Ejaz Ahsan, who heads the Karachi office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "They are politically and financially independent and have no desire to be reined in by government authorities."

Historically, madrassas were institutions of learning in the Islamic world. Today, a large percentage of the country's madrassas are community responses to sub-par government education.

Why madrassa reform has failed isn't difficult to answer.

Instead of being curtailed, madrassas sprouted up, providing free education, boarding and lodging for poor children, combating poor government schooling, unemployment, inflation and a host of other problems.

At an education conference one of Binoria's students, Adnan Kaka Khel, lectured Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf against his madrassa drive.

"Mr. President ... (this) is class games, an unjust system, disrespect of talent ... limitless corruption, and the misuse of power – it is these dangerous trends which have driven the youth in this direction. You need to fix these problems, and then you will see if these youth are terrorists or lovers of peace."

Pakistan's constitution obliges the state to provide free and compulsory secondary education. However, education (and health), key social-sector departments, have consistently been sacrificed in the name of "national interest" issues such as defence expenditure.

"In this lane itself, there are at least six madrassas," said Abdul Waheed Khan, founder and director of the Bright Educational Society, a non-profit educational institution in Qasba Colony, a Pashtun-dominated settlement in Karachi.

In 1990, Khan enrolled in a madrassa for one year to get a taste of life on the inside.

"I came out of it, and I thought, `What kind of life is this for little children?' They could not play or enjoy their lives. I saw sexual abuse and rape, and the children were learning by rote from teachers who were themselves uneducated."

So, Khan convinced clerics in his area to let him teach secular subjects to their students. The heads of three small madrassas agreed. Today, Khan's literacy program is run in 350 madrassas in Karachi.

Of the roughly $80 million earmarked for madrassa reform, about $18 million was distributed to the Sindh provincial government, but most of it, insiders say, was spend on office expenses.

Ultimately, it's the lack of political will that is preventing both the education of largely poor school children, and the closing of more extremist madrassas, many of which continue to have friends in high places across government.

"Our government doesn't want to enlighten or educate its people," said Khan, referring to Musharraf's promise of enlightened moderation. "As long as people are suppressed and can be used to follow their agenda, they are unlikely to change the status quo."