A Year-long Series on Education, Sponsored by The Aligarh Forum : – A Mirror on our Efforts, our Successes & our Shortcomings ; Stories of triumphs, tribulations and struggles of the Indian Muslims in improving their educational status, in illiteracy alleviation, and in their professional and social uplift.
By Abdul Basith MA, TwoCircles.net,
Chelari [Malappuram]: Islam in Kerala from its very early age had direct relations with Arabia through sea trade; unlike other Muslims in India there were no influences of the Indo-Persian Islam on people in Kerala and they observe the Shafi’i school of law. Though in other parts of India, Urdu language is considered a Muslim identity, in Kerala there were no linguistic barriers to alienate Muslims from their non-Muslim counterparts as they all speak the Dravidian Language of Malayalam. Muslims in Kerala from the very early days found their livelihood by farming, fishing and similar trades. Unlike the north they were never a ruling class.
The Kerala Muslims from the very inception of Islam were blessed with the effective leadership of Sayyid families, Sufi greats and great scholars of Arab, Yemen ethnicity who reached the Malabar coasts in the 15th and 16th centuries. There were no ideological divisions among the Muslim mass until late 19th century because this spiritual leadership developed different methods to impart Islamic knowledge to the Mappila Muslims through Othupallies for primary education, Darsses in Mosques for higher education and Islamic speeches [Wa’ale] sessions for imparting Islamic knowledge to all age groups.
The birth of Samastha
The modernist and reformist movements soon started finding grips within the Kerala Muslims and the traditional Muslim leadership felt the need of preventing such trends to keep intact the inherent traditional Islamic culture, heritage and rituals of the region and so it was these Sayyids, Sufis and other Sunni religious scholars who undertook the formation of Samastha. Later Samastha formed a number of sub-organisations to nurture Islamic education and prospects of the Muslim community and all such major decisions were taken and controlled by an apex body or council consisting of 40 eminent scholars of the period, the council was known by the name ‘Mushavarah’.
Foreseeing the requirement of a sub organisation exclusively to focus on imparting Primary Islamic education, Samastha formed Samastha Kerala Islam Matha Vidyabhyasa Board [SKIMVB]. The board carried out its main objective of setting up Madrasas across the state from its very initial days and the educational system was made systematic through the preparation of syllabus for students until 12th grade and students found time to attend Madrasas along with their regular schooling.
Network of madrasas across Kerala
It was in 1952 the board called applications for Madrassa recognition and recognised 10 Madrassas that year. The board executive council conducts a meeting on every second Saturday of a month to consider and review applications for Madrasa recognition. The number of Madrasas recognised each year kept increasing since then, as in 1956 the number got increased to [149], 1961- [746], 1966 – [1838], 1971 – [2694], 1976 – [3586], 1986 – [5648], 1991- [6440], 1996 – [7003], 2001 – [7865], 2008 – [8713], 2009 – [8781], 2011- [9097], and in 2012 until now it has increased to [9139]. All these recognised Madrasas have classes at least until 5th grade, 4886 of them have classes up to 7th, 1493 Madrasas have classes up to 10th and 312 Madrasas were found capable of providing 12th grade Islamic education.
With students getting far more competitive in school education and with their parents getting into a mindset that Madrassa education is secondary compared to their schooling, though there has been increase in the number of Madrasas and students getting enrolled, the practice of going to Madrasa has turned out to become just a mere formality now a days. The time these students spent in Madrasas will be about an hour during school days and as soon as they reach Madrasa by around 7:30 am they will start eyeing their school vehicle, which would be on to pick them by around 8:30 or 8:45am. During vacations Muallims take care to extend Madrasa session until noon 12:30 pm, with a tea break in between but number of students attending the classes during those holidays too will be on a decline because it will be the time when they choose for excursions and to visit their families where they would prefer to stay for weeks or even a month.
Talking to TCN Pinangode Aboobacker, General Manager of SKIMVB told “Taking into account these trends Samastha had recently allowed Madrasas to grant 10 day holidays to their students during the summer vacations, so that they could make use of these holidays for those family visits and excursions and any absence in class beyond that was strictly discouraged. The Madrasas have even started providing school tuitions, computer and abacus training for Madrasa students along with Islamic education so as to attract parent’s attention towards Madrasas. Some of these Madrasas have even undertaken efforts like starting schools adjacent to their Islamic study centres and are successful in imparting religious as well as arts, science, humanitarian and commerce education to their students”.
Syllabus
Exams are conducted close to Ramzan and during the 40 day Ramzan holidays, papers are evaluated by the respective Muallims [teachers] and students get promoted to the next grades if found eligible. SKIMVB conducts centralised public board exams at 5th, 7th and 10th grades to assess the quality of Islamic education imparted to students across the state.
The board has so far issued around 27 lakh 5th grade certificates, 10 lakh 7th grade, 1,30,000 – 10th grade and around 2600 12th grade certificates.
The SKIMVB syllabus for students until 5th grade covers subjects like Quran Hifz, Thajweed, Fiqh, Ahlakh, Thareeh, Aqeedah, and Lisanul Quran. By 7th grade the number of subjects gets shortened as Thajweed and Aqeedah are taken off the syllabus. For 10th and 12th classes the students will have to learn Fiqh, Thafseer, Ahlakh and Lisanul Quran. As in last Ramzan, 11, 38, 816 students are studying in recognised Madrasas under Samastha and there are 84,417 teachers registered under the board teaching these students.
Functioning structure
Samastha deploys Mufatish [inspectors] to visit these Madrasas in order to examine the standard of education, provide recommendations to Muallims [teachers] and Madrasa committee and are asked to finally provide an analytical report regarding the functioning of each and every Madrasa to the SKIMVB, so as to ensure the quality of Islamic education as defined by the greats who on forming the Samastha and SKIMVB have dreamed of a developed Muslim community with strong moral background and religious values. Samastha have even taken care to provide teacher training programmes to the Muallims so as to make them efficient teachers. For carrying out these functions Samastha hires more than hundred Mufatish, tutors to train teachers and provide Quran recitation classes to them.
The teachers and students too have separate associations under the auspices of the board Samastha Kerala Jam’eyyathul Mu’allimeen Central Council [SKJMCC] and Sunni Bala Vedi [SBV] respectively. SKJMCC have been efficiently supporting its poor teaching community through their welfare projects and service benefit schemes [14 benefit schemes and 6 welfare funds under action now]. The SKJMCC has besides set up a Women Sharia College, offering five year courses for girl students passing out SSLC [10th grade school].
Relevance
The Kerala Muslim Mahals [regional or village committees to manage the mosque, Madrassa and religious activities of the region] are completely under the hold of Samastha since ages and despite numerous factions taking birth within the Muslim community later and working actively in reforming the Muslim community and a few others forming groups to aggressively oppose this reformist movements, Samastha was successful in keeping intact their control over the Mahal system without many fractures. So Islamic education in Kerala largely depends on the visionary steps and efficiency of the SKIMVB and until and unless somebody else is able to replace the activities of this vast organisation in the same quality and quantity, the whole Muslim community in Kerala has the responsibility to support their ventures irrespective of their factional differences.