Beary - Madrasah Education System

Madrasah Education System

Although this community is backward in modern education, it still has successfully achieved 100% literacy rate due to prevailing Madrasa education system. All the Beary children are sent to Madrasah (Arabic: مدرسة) which is managed and run by the community that imparts religious education. All such Madrasahs are affiliated to Samastha Board which conducts well organised public examination for 5th, 7th and 10 grade students. Visiting inspectors called Mufattish are appointed to inspect the quality of education in Madrasahs. For administrative purposes divisions have been made as range, area, taluq and district. The teachers are qualified in Arabic language and religious education are known as Mu’allim and students as Muta’allim. The Madrasahs do use a centralised syllabus prepared by the Samstha Board and media of instruction is now shifted to Kannada from traditional Arabic based Malayalam called Arabi-Malayalam – a special language that uses Arabic script and Malayalam phonetics.

Mundu, Chatte and Toppi is the preferred uniform for boys in Madrasas. Girls do wear a long gown with a head-dress known as yalasara. But today this traditional dress pattern is vanishing. Boys are going for shirt – trousers and girls are adopting Churidars and Salwar kameez style.

In those villages where there is no separate building facility available to run Madrasas independently, this education is however imparted in the mosques itself. Thus mosques some time do play the role of Madrasas in many Beary dominant villages.

Apart from Samstha Board many other educational institutions also have been surfaced lately. The Salafi group has established their own Madrasahs throughout Dakshina Kannada district. Salafis also have started separate religious schools exclusively for girls in Ullal. Jamat-e-Islami is now running an exclusive college for girls in Deralakatte province. There are several other schools managed by Bearys which are aimed at providing both modern and religious education simultaneously to the children.