Bangladesh govt plans modern madrassas

Bangladesh education officials said Sunday that English, climate change studies and information technology would be taught in thousands of religious schools to make students more aware of the world around them.

All pupils at the country's 16,000 state-sponsored madrassas will have English lessons along with traditional Koran and Arabic classes, M.A. Yusuf, head of the government's Madrassa Education Board, told AFP.

"We are introducing English lessons for even the youngest students and making elementary knowledge on computers mandatory. We are also introducing teaching on climate change," he said.

"This will boost students' job prospects and allow them to study in top universities."

The reforms are part of government efforts to bring madrassa schools, which are considered by critics to be a breeding ground for Islamic militants, into the mainstream education system.

"We want to introduce teaching that is needed in real life," education minister Nurul Islam Nahid told reporters about the planned changes.

Kabir Chowdhury, a professor of English literature at Dhaka University who has helped formulate the madrassa reforms, said they were designed to curb extremism.

"We have noticed that there is a militant tendency among some madrassa students and we want to reverse that trend," he said.

Nearly three million mostly poor pupils attend the state-sponsored madrassas, accounting for 10 percent of the country's total students, according to official figures.

The madrassa board estimates that a further two million students attend unrecognised religious schools.