Minister rules out takeover of madrasas, dropping Tipu lesson

Bengaluru: There is no proposal before the government to take over madrasas for upgrading them into non-religious academic institutions, Education Minister BC Nagesh clarified.

He said that such a proposal (takeover of madrasas) would be considered only if the Muslim religious education council wants. "Presently, the children studying in madrasas are not getting any formal education other than religious knowledge. The minorities department of the government is administering the madrasas, but children there are deprived of formal education imparted under the education department programmes which is a definite lacuna in the process of educating the children of impressionable age. It is our wish that the students studying in the madrasa also must be able to become engineers, doctors and other professionals".

Referring to the proposal to drop lesson on Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan in school textbooks, Nagesh said, "We have not yet taken any decision on shelving the lessons in the schools level textbooks." "Our endeavour is that our textbooks must not mislead the young minds about the history and teach them only the truth as per the correctly documented historical fact. We will continue to recognise the titles Tipu has been given if there are any documents to prove it, in whichever case the long lesson on Tipu will be cut to the size that it deserves."

The minister on the issue of absenteeism in the ongoing SSLC exams in the State, said, "The large-scale absence of students in the exams does not relate to any other issue including hijab. I agree this time over 20,000 students have abstained from taking exams. I will not ascribe any reason to that. Generally, in a typical year, not less than 12,000 students would be absent."