GUWAHATI, Oct 14 - Some madrassas in the State � if not all � are likely to be converted into secondary schools, and the rest closed down.
Official sources said the Education Minister has asked his department to prepare a Cabinet memorandum for executing the decision taken to close down the government-run madrassas.
�We have sought the details from the districts... like the number of junior madrassas, senior madrassas, number of sanctioned teachers posts, vacancies, etc. The final proposal will be placed before the Cabinet which will take the final call,� the sources said.
The teachers are likely to be adjusted in other schools or in the same institution if it is converted into a secondary school.
Meanwhile, the Director of Secondary Education has been asked by the government to submit a proposal for shifting of the contractual teachers in madrassas to general schools. ��The government has decided to close madrassas. Therefore, the 148 numbers of madrassa contractual teachers may be shifted to schools under general Secondary Education,� the directive stated.
Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had way back in February announced the State government�s decision to close down all government-run madrassas and Sanskrit tols as �it was not government�s job to teach holy books and the Arabic language�.
The decision is, however, unlikely to affect the private-run madrassas, which are far more in numbers than the government-run ones.
There are 401 provincialized madrassas in the State. According to officials at the State Madrassa Education Board, Assam, (SMEBA) there are four provincialized Arabic colleges, 14 title madrassas, 133 senior madrassas and 250 pre-senior madrassas in the State. But the number of unregistered madrassas is much higher, the sources said.
The number of Sanskrit tols in the State is 74.
Two years back, the State government had merged the Directorate of Madrassa with the Directorate of Secondary Education.
However, the academic side of the provincialized madrassas continues to be under the SMEBA.
