Assam govt tables bill to abolish state-run madrassas

GUWAHATI: The Assam government on Monday tabled a Bill in the legislative assembly to abolish all state-run Madrassas by converting them into general schools from April 1 next year.

Despite an united opposition raising objections on tabling of the Bill, education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma introducted The Assam Repealing Bill, 2020 on the first day of the threeday winter session.

The legislation proposes to abolish the two existing Acts -The Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialisation) Act, 1995 and The Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialisation of Services of Employees and Re-Organisation of Madrassa Educational Institutions) Act, 2018.

“This bill is not to control and repeal the private Madrassas,” Sarma said, adding inclusion of the word “private” in the ‘statement of objects and reasons’ of the bill was a mistake.

The Assam cabinet had on December 13 approved a proposal to close down all Madrassas and Sanskrit Tols (schools) however, the legislation brought in the assembly during the day did not contain anything related to the Sanskrit tols and the education minister also did not mention anything about it.

The minister said in the bill that all Madrassa institutes will be converted into upper primary, high and higher secondary schools with no change of status, pay, allowances and service conditions of the teaching and nonteaching staff. There are 610 state-run Madrassas across Assam with the government spending Rs 260 crore annually, Sarma had said earlier.

In April 2018, the Education minister had brought many private Madrassas under the government ambit by introducing The Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialisation of Services of Employees and Re-Organisation of Madrassa Educational Institutions) Act, 2018. The BJP-led alliance-controlled Assam assembly had enacted the law unanimously in 2018.