For the first time, madarsa students of various courses in the district will write their annuals papers at external examination centres, instead of their seminaries, where incidents of mass cheatings used to surface regularly. The Allahabad high court on Tuesday upheld the move of the Uttar Pradesh madarsa board, which had decided to discontinue with the old practice of holding the exams at home centres. The examinations for munshi- maulvi, alim, kamil and fazil for the year 2016 will be conducted at five intermediate colleges.

 

"In compliance with the instructions of the registrar of Arbi Farsi Madarsa Education Board, Mohammad Tariq, as many as five examination centres will be set up at five intermediate college of the district to facilitate a total of 3,388 students of eight madarsas of the district to take the exam," said JK Verma, district inspector of schools. A separate examination centre for girls will be set up at Rani Awanti Bai Girls Inter Collage in Pilibhit where 451 girl students will appear for examinations.

 

This board's move to take the examination centres outside the seminaries is meant to effectively check the practice of mass copying.

 

The madarsa board has also revised the examination schedule. It has decided to conduct the examination from April 11 to April 26. Earlier, the board had announced the examination dates between April 6 and April 18. However, the move was also criticized by some madarsa heads. The chairperson of Madarsa-e-Jamia Ahle Sunnat Mashid-ul Uloom, Maulana Jartab Raza Khan told TOI that in almost every examination the madarsa management had to confront some "serious omissions" in papers.

 

"Sometimes the question papers fall short when envelops are opened in examination halls, and sometimes the question papers are found to be of another subject than the scheduled examination," he said.

 

The external centres will not be able to deal with such a situation, he claimed.

 

"Neither the district administration nor the secondary education department of the district ever felt any need to conduct the madarsa examinations in a transparent manner or without complications as is commonly administered in CBSE and UP board examinations," Maulana Jartab alleged.