State Madrasas to become hi-tech

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, August 2, 2007
The Madrasa Board is all set to become hi-tech. On Thursday, the department of minorities’ development and welfare and madrasa education signed an MoU with Wipro in this regard.
According to the agreement, Wipro under its “Applying Thought in School” program will look to improve the quality of madrasa education. Fifteen madrasas are being involved in this 2-year pilot project. Wipro along with its partner organisation Vikram Shila has already started the project in Classes V and VI of some madrasas. “We are aiming to upgrade the academic and administrative system of the madrasas. We are working in 16 states all over the country but this is our first project in Bengal,” said Vijay Gupta, vice-president (community service) of Wipro.
The company will help the madrasa board to develop certain areas of the curriculum by trying to find out what the students want to learn and also what they need to learn in a competitive environment. They will then forward the suggestions to the board.
Wipro will also help the board to improve its assessment system and ensure that children do not learn by rote. Making questions knowledge, application and experience oriented would facilitate this. The company will also train teachers to be lively in class to ensure that students enjoy learning. Teachers will also be taught to be good education managers and administrative managers. “The aim would be to help teachers identify ways of teaching that would leave an impact on students,” said Gupta.
The minister of the department of minorities development and welfare and madrasa education, Abdus Sattar said, “We are trying to minimise dropout rates in school and this initiative will play a very important role.” Sattar added that teachers should not be content teaching but aim to learn education management. “Such programs will modernise the system and change the attitudes of both students and others involved by making everyone professional,” the minister said.
The ministry will start 100 new madrasas by the next academic session and 10 of these will be government sponsored. Currently, the only such institution in the state is in Hooghly. “The proposal has been sent to the finance department. We will develop learning resource centres in the proposed government madrasas and develop them as model institutions,” Sattar said.
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