New Delhi 

The passing away of industrialist-philanthropist Ratan Naval Tata at 86 in Mumbai on October 9 is an emotional moment for Madrasa Razaviya Rasheed Uloom of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The madrasa was remodeled and modernised by the Ratan Tata-led Tata Trust..

Ustad Risalat Ansari, a teacher in Madrasa, says, "It (Modernisation) had a very positive effect on the children. Their natural abilities emerged. Children were full of enthusiasm as they were now receiving religious and contemporary education in Madrasa. The students were learning IT (information technology). They are discovering their innate talents. The dropout rate is down and so is the cost of running the school. Normally, children used to drop out of school or madrasa after fifth and sixth, but due to this project, they continue their schooling,"

In 2006 Tata Trust incorporated the Madrasa Improvement Program in its list of domains and this Varanasi Madrasa became a told model for other Madrasas.

Teachers of Madrasa leaning innovative ways of teaching

The Madrasa Rizviya Rashid Uloom is one of the 20 Madrasas in the City to have benefited from this project. Risalat Ansari says, "2017 to 2020 was the golden period of his Madrasa as the program was being implemented and results were visible.",

A slum area, Bajardiya has a population of around 2.5 lakh. Today of the 350 students enrolled there, 245 are girls. The area is a center for weavers and earlier each year 50-60 children used to drop out after the eighth standard. They would be asked to leave the school to work with their families at the looms and supplement the family income.

Speaking with Awaz-The Voice, Risalat Ansari said that the Tata Trust's work impacted many people. "The teachers received training. Today, all of us use laptops. It has improved the future of children studying in the Madrasa. This project helped to bring out the hidden potential in children. We learned to use paintings and arts and crafts to help children learn from a different perspective. About 20 local madrassas were involved in the program. Prizes were awarded often to encourage the children involved in each program."

Risalat Ansari said that his Madrasa was associated with Tata Trust's project till 2020. This period saw higher enrolments in Madrasas and schools and the trend of education catching up with Muslims. Earlier most of the students would drop out after the 8th standard. This changed with the intervention of the Tata Trust and we all could see cataclysmic changes around."

A Classroom for teachers of Madrasa by Tata Trust

However, Ansari says, "When the Tata Trust closed the programme, things started going wary again.

"Our Madrasah was selected for this project by an NGO People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights led by Dr Lenin Raghuwanshi and Jan Mitra Nyias of Shruti Nagvanshioonshi. The Tata Trust project showed us the way but, unfortunately, we slipped back into the same old rut."

The Ratan Tata-led Tata Trust established the 'Madrasa Programme' after the Sachar Committee report revealed the low standards of education among Indian Muslims.

The Trust implemented the Madrasa reform program in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.

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Around 10,000 children in 50 madrasas in Varanasi and Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh were covered in the programme.