Kerala madrasas record steady growth, more than 14,000 now

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The News Minute| September 23, 2014| 3.30 pm IST As one of the most educated Muslim communities in the country, Kerala's Muslims have stood apart for their reformist take on education. Seen only as a supplement to modern education, whether computer lessons or English language teaching, Kerala has seen a steady growth in neighbourhood madrasas, that have a mix of religious teachings and other subjects. Madrasa education in Kerala is mainly controlled by three boards. In the last three months, these three boards have given permission to start 300 more madrasas in the state, which takes the total number of madrasas run by three boards to about 14,000. Apart from this, in the last two years, more than 1,000 madrasas have been started in the state. A New Indian Express report states that the Samastha Kerala Islam Matha Board runs 8,390 madrasas in the state, while the the Samastha Kerala Sunni Vidyabhyasa Board has 4,118 and the Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen runs 1,126 madrasas. In addition, there are other smaller boards that run more madrasas. The report says that the Central Government’s Scheme for Providing Quality Education through Madrasas (SPQEM) has encouraged the setting up of more such schools. Read- Sunni vs Sunni: Kerala's newspaper wars The highest number of madrasas in the state falls in the districts of Malappuram, Kozhikode and state capital Thiruvananthapuram. An NCERT (National Council for Education Research & Training (NCERT) study titled, A Study of madrasas of Kerala: An Overview, done in 2009, had found that madrasas in Kerala are fast embracing the English language and computer education. The study mentioned that madrasas in Malappuram were encouraging students to finish graduation and post-graduation from recognised universities.

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