"The problems the madrasah students face are that they have no scope to express themselves and thus they are invisible in the society. A very few get opportunities to get out in the real world and even when they do, the lack of certain life skills also slow down their progress," said Sadia Afrin, Programme Manager of Leaping Boundaries, a social organisation that provides madrasah students with a wide-range of skills and access to platforms to help integrate them into the mainstream society.

This writer carried out a short discussion with officials of Leaping Boundaries in order to know about the condition of the madrasah students  who play a significant role in the development of Bangladesh— academically, mentally and spiritually.

We have many preconceived notions about  madrasah students. We tend to think they are all the same, equally conservative, backward, incapable of critical thinking and devoid of creativity forgetting each child is different and that it does not matter what background they come from. 

The writer asked Shagufe Hossain, the founder of Leaping Boundaries, about the history of madrasah and its establishment and what they have known about it. She replied, " What I understand the madrasah education system has a complex and deep history in South Asia that goes back to the 13th century. Back in the day, it was synonymous with schools and they flourished under the Mughal rule. Various schools of thoughts arose and split the system between traditional/religious and modern ones. One such was the Dars E Nizami model where the curriculum included mathematics, astronomy, medicine, chemistry as well as Quran, hadith, jurisprudence and sufism. In 1826, the English language was introduced in the madrasah curriculum and by 1910 the madrasah education was split into two streams of old and new schemes, where the new scheme included English, Bangla and mathematics alongside Arabic studies. It is this system that evolved into the Aliya Madrasah system and later moved to Dhaka. The Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board was established much later, in 1979 under which most Aliya madrasahs are registered.  There is also the Deobandi School which is where ideologies of the Qawmi madrasah education stem from focusing on revealed knowledge rather than rational sciences."

In a recent study by Niaz Asadullah it was found that the male female ratio in madrasahs is 50:50 and madrasahs provide over 1.5 million girls in Bangladesh the opportunity to be educated. A lack of females in the administration was observed, there is a shortage of trained teachers in the institutes. There are severe resource constraints in madrasahs in terms of everything starting from materials in classrooms to water sanitation and hygiene facilities to food. Many madrasahs are also large orphanages and house hundreds if not thousands of very vulnerable children.

These children suffer from feeling of insecurity and hopelessness about not having a future due to lack of marketable skills and are often growing up in extremely unhealthy environment. A generally conservative environment means students are discouraged from participating in public platforms which would enable them to gain confidence, strengthen voice, participate as well as respect and tolerate differences. 

On being asked about  the problems Leaping Boundaries is trying to solve for the madrasah students, the Programme Manager of Leaping Boundaries Sadia Afrin mentioned: "Leaping Boundaries is working towards increasing madrasah student's visibility on platforms where they are underrepresented and unknown facilitating their interaction skills with various socioeconomic and cultural groups. In Leaping Boundaries, students undergo a combination of training programmes on English language, information and communication technology and soft skills to build their knowledge and confidence and will receive counseling to ensure psychosocial support. After having developed sufficient skills and the necessary coping mechanism, the children studying in the madrasah education system represent themselves on these platforms." Their project focuses on girls aged 12-14 but includes boys so that the environment hindering equal opportunities for girls and boys may be appropriately addressed. 

When this writer wanted to know what the changes the Leaping Boundaries desire to see that will help this student community, the founder Shagufe Hossain stated: "We all need to give them the scope to learn new things, try new things and explore the world just like other children from non-madrasah background do. Every child has endless possibilities but it is the lack of expressing themselves that creates the opportunity gap. There are other organisations that may focus to reduce the gap of madrasah students and the mainstream student communities and eventually give students more visibility and access so that every child has an equal playing field to become harbingers of their own communities."

The writer is a final year student of Mathematics and Natural Science at BRAC University, sanjida.a.tanny@gmail.com [Read More]

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Source: The Financial Express