Patna, Sep 8 (IANS) Girls have outperformed boys in both the Class 10 and Class 12 level examinations conducted by the madrassas (Islamic seminaries) in Bihar, officials said Tuesday.
“Like the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination results, girls left the boys behind in the madrassa examinations this year,” said Bihar Minority Welfare Minister Sahid Ali Khan, who declared the results of the Madrassa Education Board.
Girls studying in madrassas have shown the lead in the Class 12 (Maulvi), Class 10(Fauquania) and middle school (Vastania) examinations of the state’s Madrassa Education Board.
In the Maulavi exam, 20,396 girls passed whereas the figure for boys stood at 15,585. Similarly, 47,201 girls passed the Fauquania exam compared to 31,279 boys.
Of the 24,475 girls who sat for the Maulavi exam, 10,142 passed with first division. But only 9,835 of the 18,096 boys could secure first division.
According to board officials, a total of 48,286 boys appeared in the Fauqania exam but only 15,632 passed with first division. In the case of girls, 70,753 appeared in the exam and 16,406 passed with first division.
In the Vastania exam, 95,587 girls passed compared to 63,413 boys.
“In the Madrassa board exams, girls have been doing better than boys for the last few years. This is the beginning of a new trend, not heard of in the Islamic seminary exams,” said social activist Irshadul Haque.
There are over 4,000 madrassas in Bihar, including over 1,118 state-run Islamic schools. There are 2,459 unaided madrassas and hundreds of others operating at different places.
According to the first ever status paper brought out by the Bihar State Madrassa Education Board, there are only 32 madrassas for girls under the government-aided category and 576 in the unaided category.
Some madrassas in Bihar have begun modernising their education system by introducing computers and laboratory science. They even encourage students to join the National Cadet Corps (NCC) or the Scouts and Guides.
Board officials said that over 100 Hindu students were also enrolled in the state’s madrassas, breaking the myth that these institutions preached religious fundamentalism.
According to the 2001 Census report, the Muslim population in India was 13.4 percent (138 million) of the total population. Muslims have a literacy rate of 59.1 percent against an all-India literacy rate of 64.8 percent, and only half of the Indian Muslim women are literate (50.1 percent).
However, Muslim women in Bihar have a much lower literacy rate of 31.5 percent.