CM Yogi Adityanath led government in Uttar Pradesh has approved the introduction of NCERT books in Madrasas across the state. All the educational institutions coming under the Madrasa board taught Urdu, Farsi and Arabic along with Muslim religious teachings in their syllabus till date. The Yogi government has also introduced English and Hindi as mediums of education in Madrasas along with Urdu. This is a welcome decision by the government in UP after the NCPCR claimed that Madrasas all over India were providing sub-standard education to its pupils. The NCPCR report went so far as to suggest that the students of these Madrasas should be considered “as good as out of school students”. UP government’s decision to go ahead with improving the quality of education being provided in Madrasas is commendable and should be copied by other state governments as well.
The CM Yogi led UP government has decided to introduce National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) books for Math, Science, Social Science, Hindi and English. The UP government had enacted a 40 member committee with members from NCERT, Aligarh Muslim University, Lucknow University, principals of secondary and higher secondary schools and even research scholars from the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Urdu Arbi and Farsi University to discuss the introduction of non-language subjects based on NCERT curriculum. The only subjects which will follow old curriculum are literature, Vyavshayik Shiksha (Business Education) and Krishi (Agriculture). Last year the government had decided to replace Uttar Pradesh Board books with NCERT books from the next academic session. High School and Intermediate students who will write their exams in the year 2019 for UP Board and UP Madrasa Board will be the first batch of students to face the exams under the revised curriculum.
The quality of education in state and Madrasa boards had considerably dwindled under the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwaadi Party governments. Lack of strict authority had led to downfall in the quality of education being imparted in the Madrasas. Earlier governments in UP had remained shy of approaching Madrasas so as to not hurt the religious sentiments of the minority community. The resulting impact on the education being imparted to the students was not an issue for the previous state governments which were least concerned about the quality of education.
CM Yogi hopes to maintain his terrific track record of weeding out discrepancies in all spheres of UP. His dream of an overall developed Uttar Pradesh cannot come to ground reality if a sizeable population of the state is doled out sub-par education. The decision to go ahead with implementing NCERT books in Madrasas after introducing them in the state boards will drastically improve the quality of education in the state. Other states having a sizeable Muslim population should take a lesson from this move, the results of which will show in the years to come. The Madrasa board which held a meeting on May 15 should also be praised for staying open to the new reforms being proposed by the UP government. The cabinet meeting of the government which happened on Tuesday put the final stamp on the suggestions of the board. Reforms in education need to be carried out on a nationwide scale something which the Congress and other parties should have realized a long time back. CM Yogi and his ‘no nonsense approach’ to improving UP should be praised, be it for improving education or safety for the residents. His era as UP CM will go down in history for bringing in the changes necessary to create a better image of the state.