The proliferation of madrassas in Pakistan has
contributed to labour market mismatches. According to the Pakistan
government’s own statistics, in 2008 alone twice as many students were
enrolled in the 12,500 madrassas than in the 124-odd universities.
Given the curriculum taught in madrassas, most graduates
are ill equipped for gainful employment in a knowledge-based economy.
Such graduates, frustrated by their limited or non-existent employment
prospects, have often gravitated towards militancy and extremism.
Madrassas in Pakistan flourished under the late General
Zia ul-Haq who used Islamisation of the state and society to prolong his
rule. Whereas the population increased by 29 per cent between 1972 and
1981, the number of graduates from religious schools in Pakistan
increased by 195 per cent during the same period. This resulted in an
oversupply of graduates from religious schools who had limited
employment prospects.
The military and civil governments that followed the Zia
regime also did little to address the dramatic increase in the number of
madrassas and the students enrolled in such institutions. The number of
madrassas jumped from 2,800 in 1988 to 9,900 in 2002. The Deobandi
madrassas saw the largest increase during that period, reaching a total
of 7,000 institutions. In fact, the increase in the number of Deobandi
madrassas was higher than the number of all other madrassas combined.
Professor Jamal Malik, who holds the chair of Islamic
studies at Erfurt University in Germany, was amongst the first to
undertake a systematic study of the “colonisation of Islam” where he
focused on how religious education was transformed under General Zia. In
1987 Professor Malik highlighted the labour market mismatch for the
thousands of madrassa graduates whose religious training was out of step
with the skills needed to be employed in the civilian workforce.
The madrassa graduates were initially disadvantaged in
the competitive labour markets because their asnaad (diplomas)
were not recognised by those outside the religious establishment. The
fix was however provided by the Zia regime in 1982 when the University
Grants Commission decreed that madrassa diplomas were equivalent to an
MA in Arabic or Islamic studies.
Despite the equivalency for academic credentials, the
madrassa graduates did not experience any meaningful increase in their
employability in the urban employment markets where the services sector
had emerged as the major provider of employment. The Zia regime tried to
generate employment for the unemployed religious graduates by
introducing Arabic and other religious subjects in the school curricula.
However, the supply of religious graduates far exceeded the demand,
resulting in a large number of disgruntled and frustrated madrassa
graduates whose numbers continued to swell in the decades following the
Zia regime.
According to Professor Malik, the armed forces tried to
offer reprieve to the burgeoning number of unemployed madrassa
graduates. Under General Zia, the army took out advertisements in
madrassa publications such as Al-Haq (Akora Khattak), encouraging
graduates to join the forces as soldiers or in other capacities.
Professor Malik’s study exposed the systematic spatial
and socio-economic trends instrumental in the backgrounds of madrassa
students. Most graduates of the Deobandi madrassas came from rural and
economically deprived parts of Balochistan and the North-West Frontier
Province. On the other hand, most students in Barelvi madrassas were of
middle- or lower-middle-class background, belonging to semi-urban parts
of the Punjab. And whereas the growth of the Deobandi madrassas outpaced
the rest, the madrassas operated by Barelvis, Ahl-e-Hadiths and the
Jamaat-e-Islami also experienced resurgence under the Zia regime.
The Deobandi madrassas, which grew at a faster rate in
the Pashtun areas, were also more radical and closely linked with the
war against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. The Deobandi madrassas have
continued to become even more radicalised over the years. In a recent
study of religious institutions in Ahmedpur East, SH Ali found that 80
per cent of the 166 Deobandi madrassas were involved in sectarian
activities compared to only 25 per cent of the 166 Barelvi madrassas
(Ali, SH, ‘Pakistani madrasas and rural underdevelopment’ in Madrasas
in South Asia: Teaching terror?, edited by Jamal Malik, Routledge,
2008, pp. 94). At the same time, seven out of 10 Shia madrassas were
found to be involved in sectarian activities.
Deobandis were not the only ones who were mobilised to
serve in militias fighting the Soviet army and its allies in
Afghanistan. Barelvis and others, including Shias, were also co-opted in
the great game. The Lebanon-based Hizbollah was mobilised to convince
Shias in Afghanistan and Pakistan to join Deobandis and others in the
fight against the Soviets. In the early 1990s the then Hizbollah chief,
Sheikh Abbas Al-Musawi, showed up in Pakistan where he met with not just
the madrassa students but also addressed students enrolled in
universities in Peshawar.
The battle-hardened graduates of madrassas who had
served in Afghanistan returned initially to a hero’s welcome during the
mid- to late 1980s. Given their persistent lack of employable skills
required in the services sector, and despite their martial prowess
earned in Afghanistan, the madrassa graduates continued to face the same
dim employment prospects.
Professor Jamal Malik sensed the hazards latent in an
oversupply of religious youth who were armed and laureates of guerrilla
warfare. As early as 1987, he ominously warned that the large number of
madrassa graduates in the future would result in “a very high
probability that the government will be faced with an enormous problem
in the next five to ten years to come”.
By the mid-1990s, as per Professor Malik’s stark
warnings, the Taliban (led by the graduates of mostly Deobandi madrassas
in Pakistan) and their allies had marched out of Pakistan in different
directions. Years later, the same madrassa graduates returned to
Pakistan to start an armed struggle against the state, which has
resulted in the violent death of over 37,000 Pakistanis and at the same
time has destabilised the state and society.
While Professor Malik had warned against the threats
posed by an army of unemployed madrassa graduates much before others,
there was however no shortage of warnings by other notables against
creating such militias. In October 1996, when the Taliban were busy
taking control of Afghanistan in a violent struggle against other
Afghans, Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the
Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, warned the world about the
folly of jumping into bed with the Taliban. He wrote: “Whatever its
political future, the Taliban is likely to swell the ranks of Afghan war
alumni waging international terrorism.”
Later, in May 1999, mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah
Masood also warned Pakistan and the rest of what to expect from the
Taliban once they were done with Afghanistan. Masood knew well of the
Taliban’s motives, who wanted to “impose their version of Islam in
Afghanistan and then export it elsewhere”. He was prophetic in his
assessment of the inherent risks of a complete takeover of Afghanistan
by the Taliban, which he shared with The Sydney Morning Herald:
“If we don’t resist, they will go on to Uzbekistan or Pakistan. They
can’t keep still.”
The challenge remains as to how one can integrate
madrassa graduates into the workforce thus preventing them from joining
extremist organisations. The madrassa reforms, which advocate
introducing English, maths and science in the madrassa curricula, have
largely been ineffective and ill-conceived. Such reforms fail to
appreciate the self-selection bias inherent in madrassa enrolments.
Those who are more likely to fail in English, maths and science subjects
end up in madrassas. Revising the curriculum by adding these subjects
will lead to higher failure rates which would further add to the
frustrations of madrassa students.
Instead of teaching English or maths, I would recommend
vocational training for all madrassa students. Despite the economic
hardship, Pakistan boasts a growing, albeit struggling at times, middle
class that sustains the demand for new homes, cars and motorcycles.
Pakistan needs electricians, plumbers, motor mechanics and other similar
craftsmen who can demand a decent wage in the current marketplace.
Furthermore, with some technical experience gained in Pakistan, the
madrassa graduates can search for similar work in the Middle East where
they can earn higher wages for their skills, which will also include
some fluency in Arabic.
Without any vocational training for madrassa graduates,
we will only compound our security concerns in Pakistan.