Religious Education
Meet Bangladesh - Bangladesh 101:
The national government supported Islamic education at
several levels. In the late 1980s, efforts were being made to modernize the
madrasa (school of religious education attached to a mosque) system and
to introduce secular subjects in the madrasa curriculum under the
Bangladesh Madrasa Education Board. In 1986 there were 4,118 madrasas and
638,926 students under the aegis of the government-supervised system. By 1985
forty madrasas had been established for female students. There were
primary, secondary, and postsecondary madrasas, which, except for one in
Sylhet run directly by the government, were attached to
mosques and dependent on public charity and endowments. Most of these
institutions had poor physical facilities and equipment. The objective of
madrasa education during the Third Five-Year Plan was to modernize the
system through the introduction of science courses. The program included the
provision of science laboratories and equipment to 200 madrasas as part
of the ongoing scheme for development of secondary education. In addition,
similar facilities were to be provided in a limited way to another 125
madrasas. Furthermore, financial benefits to the madrasa teachers
were raised so they would achieve parity with teachers at secular secondary
schools.
Madrasa graduates usually assumed posts as imams at mosques or became teachers at nominally secular schools. Traditionally, they often would take up both occupations, since many primary schools were located in village mosques.
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