Assam Government Proposes Bill To Abolish All State—Run Madrassas

On Monday, the Assam Government tabled a bill in the Legislative Assembly to dismantle all state-run Madrassas by turning them into general schools on 1 April next year.

Despite a united opposition, Minister of Education Himanta Biswa Sarma launched the Assam Repealing Bill 2020 on the first day of the three-day winter session. The law aims to repeal two existing Acts—Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialisation) Act, 1995 and Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialisation of Employee Services and Re-Organisation of Madrassa Educational Institutions) Act, 2018.

“This bill is not intended to control and repeal the private Madrassas,” Sarma said, adding the term “private” to the “statement of objects and grounds” of the bill was an error.

On December 13, the Assam Cabinet accepted a plan to close all the Madrassas and Sanskrit Tols (Schools) but the legislation brought to the Assembly during the day did not include anything specific to the Sanskrit tols and the Minister of Education did not say anything about it.

The Minister claimed in the bill that all Madrassas will be turned into upper primary, upper and higher secondary schools without any alteration in the rank, salary, benefits and terms of service of teaching and non-teaching employees.

There are 610 state-run Madrassas throughout Assam, with the government investing Rs 260 crore annually, Sarma said earlier.

In April 2018, the Minister of Education launched the Assam Madrassa Education Act (Provincialization of Employee Facilities and Re-Organisation of Madrassa Educational Institutions) to several private Madrassas under the state. The BJP-led alliance-controlled Assam Assembly passed the law unanimously in 2018.