The government is all set to affiliate Islamic seminaries (madrasas) with the National Institute of Open School.
After the affiliation of madrasas offering primary and secondary education to the NIOS, the students will get certificates which will help them to go ahead with further studies.
"Till today, the madrasa students are not able to come to the formal educational stream as their certificates are not accepted for admission in colleges and universities. Once the madrasas are affiliated to NIOS, the students can capitalise the certificates for further studies," a senior official in the Ministry of Human Resource Development told PTI.
The madrasas, which mainly focus on imparting religious teaching to the students, will have to expand their course content as per the NIOS syllabus in areas of science, technology, humanities, languages and art and craft, the official said.
The NIOS will provide certificates to students at class III, V, VIII, X and XII levels.
The move assumes significance in view of the findings of the Sachar Committee that 25 per cent of Muslim children in the age group of six to 14 years either never went to school or else dropped out at some stage.
The committee had found only one out of 25 under graduate and one of 50 post graduate students in premier colleges were from Muslim community.
The government has also asked the University Grants Commission to find out ways for granting equivalent certificates to students pursuing higher studies in madrasas.
The official said that a committee of UGC is looking into how to give equivalent certificates to the students pursuing higher studies. The report is expected very soon.
The government has prepared a scheme for providing quality education in madrasas. The scheme, which has been approved by the Expenditure Finance Committee, envisages Rs 325 crore investment under the 11th Plan for the Islamic seminaries.
Three teachers for teaching science, mathematics and language subjects will be provided by the government to each madrasa depending on the students' strength.
The students will get an honorarium of Rs 6,000 each at primary and elementary level while for teachers at secondary and higher secondary level, the honorarium is Rs 10,000 per month.
Earlier, teachers at the primary level were getting Rs 3,000 while the remuneration was Rs 4,000 at secondary and senior secondary levels. The existing teachers will get the revised package from this year, the official said.
The madrasas will be provided computer and advanced facilities in sports and games. Each madrasa will be given Rs one lakh towards science and computer lab while Rs 50,000 will be provided for starting libraries at these institutes.
Students above 14 years of age will be provided vocational education at the accredited vocational institutions of the NIOS.
The government will provide Rs five lakh assistance to 10 madrasa boards for strengthening their infrastructure. In-service training will be provided to teachers in every two years. About 6,000 madrassas, including 4,000 alone in Uttar Pradesh, will be covered under this scheme.
The scheme will come up for cabinet approval this month.
