The fate of students from hundreds of religious seminaries across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is up in the air as the provincial government remains confused on charting a policy to formally register these educational institutions. At the moment, seminaries are neither registered with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Industrial Department nor with the provincial Elementary and Secondary Education Department (K-PESED).
According to the K-P Home and Tribal Affairs Department, there are as many as 3,792 seminaries in the province. Of these, 2,654 are registered and 1,138 are unregistered.
Around 100 are inactive while 238 are listed in category ‘B’, while 3,502 are in category ‘C’. Moreover, of the seminaries under surveillance, as many as 76 seminaries are listed in category ‘A’, 196 in category ‘B’ and 3,034 are in category ‘C’.
In January this year, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) provincial government had decided that the K-PESED will monitor and regulate seminaries in the province. But three months on, and the department has yet to decide on the future of seminars and how to deal with them.
According to an official, who did not wish to be named, said that as per a decision taken in a meeting of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) in Islamabad, all boards of intermediate and secondary education would now register madrassas within their respective jurisdictions. Moreover, since a Private School Regularity Authority (PSRA) now operates in K-P, these seminaries will also be dealt with by the PSRA.
The official said that so far the PSRA has yet to become fully functional, hence some of its processes are still being handled by the industries department in the province.
As soon as the PSRA starts working properly, they will also register seminaries, the official said.
Last year, the K-P government had directed the Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) across the province to start registering seminaries. However, the administration at a majority of seminaries expressed their reservation over the move and refused to fill out the registration forms.
No official directions However, officials responsible for registering the seminaries have suggested that the government, despite okaying the move, is hesitant to enforce it. PSRA Deputy Director Noor Alam Khan told The Express Tribune that it was the provincial government which decided in a meeting to put seminars under the PSRA.
However, the authority has yet to receive any formal directives from the government to start work on it.
Noor said that if the provincial government officially asks them to register seminaries across the province, they will definitely deal with them.
PSRA Managing Director Zafar Ali Shah said that they have completed 80 per cent of their groundwork and that the authority will soon start functioning fully.
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He echoed Noor’s sentiments that in the event they receive a formal order from the government assigning them the responsibility of registering seminaries in the province, they will do so. Criticism Meanwhile, an official of the largest federation of Islamic seminaries in the country slammed the provincial government for not taking them into confidence regarding registration of seminaries.
“We appreciate the government’s efforts to put the seminaries under the education department but we have not agreed to any development without consultation,” said Mufti Sirajul Hassan, the media incharge of the Wafaqul Madaris Al Arabia K-P chapter. He added that he Wafaqul Madaris Al Arabia oversees more than 5,000 seminars across the province where around 700,000 students are enrolled. Mufti Hassan said that first, the BISE had sent a form to all seminaries, asking them to register with the boards. However, the Wafaqul Madaris had raised several reservations over the move and had refused to fill the forms.
He demanded that the government take the issue of registering seminaries seriously and to design a formal mechanism for registering them after due consultation with all seminaries.
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