July 25, 2016: CODE PAKISTAN, in collaboration with Pakistan-U.S. Alumni Network (PUAN), organized an interactive session between the students and ulema of various madrasahs of Islamabad and the participants of the PUAN International Education Conference. The aim of the interactive session was to solicit suggestions on further improving madrasah-university interaction in Pakistan. It was a very lively and educative session in which the madrasah students answered questions regarding their education system while the participants of the PUAN International Education Conference responded to the comments and questions of the madrasah students and ulema. At the end of the session five specific suggestions for improving madrasah-university also emerged from the discussion.
Executive Director of CODE PAKISTAN Aarish Khan, who was the moderator of the discussion, opened the session by giving some fact and figures highlighting the share and importance of madrasah education in Pakistan’s education system. He called for greater interaction between the mainstream education institutions and madrasahs for saving the society from further polarization.
The participants of the session dedicated a considerable amount of time to asking each other questions about their respective education systems. The curiosity of the students and graduates of the two education systems about each other reinforced the importance of greater interaction and dialogue between them.
Maulana Shehzad Abbasi of Jamia Ma’had ul Quran maintained that madrasahs were open to reform and were reforming their education system on their own with introduction of contemporary subjects as well. Maulana Ahsan ul Haq of Jamia Fareedia welcomed the participants to visit his madrasah and learn about their system of education, which according to him, taught compassion, respect for others, and human dignity. Maulana Faheem Usman, a graduate of Darul Uloom Karachi, was of the view that madrasahs do not teach intolerance, rather they encourage difference of opinion, which is taught as a subject in madrasahs. Some madrasah participants also called for incorporation of a more extensive Islamic curriculum into the curricula of the mainstream education systems.
The participants of the PUAN International Education Conference emphasized the need for greater transparency in madrasah education system, and called for more similar activities. The five specific recommendations that came out from the session are as follows:
1. Greater number of non-government organizations need to reach out to the madrasahs for collaborative activities.
2. The universities need to devise special short training courses specifically for madrasah graduates like computers, entrepreneurship development etc. On the other hand, the madrasahs need to devise special short courses specifically for university students like Islamic economic system, the principles of learning Quran and Hadith etc. This would not only create mutual avenues of learning but promote greater interaction between the two.
3. All interactive sessions between the students and graduates of madrasahs and the mainstream education system should be followed up with further interaction through emails, social media networking etc.
4. There should be inter-university-madrasah exchange programs on the pattern of the Pak-U.S. educational exchange programs in which the students of madrasah are coopted in the university system and vice versa for a certain period of time.
5. Model schools need to be opened that would incorporate both madrasah and contemporary learning to create homogeneity of thought between the beneficiaries of the two systems of learning.