-Nishant Saxena
Come April and Madrasas in Uttar Pradesh will start admitting students in pre-primary classes as well.
With an aim to ensure Madrasa students feel at par with their peers attending regular schools, the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education will begin offering admissions to pre-primary classes in Madrasas in April, following the same admission process as primary and English-medium private schools in the state.
The decision to offer admission to pre-primary classes in Madrasas was made after teachers reported difficulties in directly teaching students from Class I.
Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed Javed, chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education, has been quoted as saying that the pre-primary classes will provide students with both modern and religious education and will be conducted according to state government rules and regulations. These pre-primary classes would be held for three years. The syllabus for these classes will be released in March, and the names of the classes are yet to be decided. He made it clear that if needed, private teachers will be hired to teach these classes.
The introduction of pre-primary classes at Madrasas aim to ensure that students at Madrasas do not feel less confident than students at other schools.
The Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education was established by the UP government in 2017 to address alleged irregularities in Madrasas. A survey conducted in 2022 found that around 8,500 Madrasas in the state were operating without recognition from the board. The districts with the highest number of unrecognized Madrasas were Moradabad, Siddharth Nagar, and Bahraich.
