Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government has decided to introduce dress code for students going to madrasas across the state. Though a decision on what the dress code would be is yet to be taken, Minister of Minority Affairs Mohsin Raza told Zee News that the same would be decided after taking the opinion of all stakeholders.
“We will make sure that we take into consideration opinion of all stakeholders before deciding on what the dress code would be. It will be such that the children also feel that they are being brought into the mainstream,” Raza told Zee News.
"Our aim is to bring madrasas at par with other educational institutions. Till now, students in madrasas have been wearing 'kurta-payjama'. A dress code will make it more formal. We will provide them the uniform," he later told news agency ANI.
In 2017, the Adityanath government had cleared a proposal to include books by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in the syllabus of madrasas in Uttar Pradesh. As per the proposal of the state government, mathematics and science subjects were included in the curriculum.
Both the moves have been seen as a way to bring the madrasas at par with public and private schools. Notably, madrasas usually prescribe their own syllabus to children studying in the institutions.
In August 2017, the Uttar Pradesh government had launched a portal of UP Madrasa Board for online registration of all the Islamic educational institutions in a bid to check irregularities.
For Independence Day celebrations in 2017, the Adityanath government had also made it mandatory for madrasas to hoist the national flag and make students sing the national anthem. The move was also challenged in the Allahabad High Court, which ruled in the favour of the government.
