There was a time when young Kanwal Nisar's aspiration of becoming a lawyer would have raised eyebrows in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.

That is because the 14-year-old girl attends a religious school and in the ninth grade, her thoughts should by now have been turning to religious scholarship rather than law.

But Kanwal's school - the Model Madrasah for Girls in Rawalpindi - the sister city of the capital Islamabad, is o­ne of three that have been set up in an experiment that for Pakistan is as bold as it is fraught with the possibility of failure.

On her syllabus are Science, English, Mathematics and computer skills - standard fare for any school, but hardly routine for a madrasah - an Islamic school that provides free education and usually free lodging.

The religious instruction too has been 'upgraded', as the principal, Dr Mian Muhammad Siddiqui, pointed out to IPS .

Unlike traditional madrasahs which impart teaching that has remained unchanged for generations, his school uses Islamic books written recently and which provide modern

interpretations of religion.

"People want their children to have religious and morality education, and that is why the traditional religious schools were mushrooming," said Dr Siddiqui. "Now the government itself is providing that service."

The 'service' has taken shape now with the Pakistan Madrasah Education Board (PMEB) setting up three model schools - the girls-only school which Kanwal attends, and two boys' schools in the southern cities of Sukkur and Karachi.

The board is still new - having been established by the government of President Gen Pervez Musharraf in August 2001 - and its remit is ambitious.

The secretary of the PMEB, Chaudhry Shafiq, said the board seeks the standardisation of curricula in Pakistan's madrasahs while ensuring that Islamic education is provided together with subjects found in the country's mainstream education system.

To date, over 300 madrasahs have affiliated themselves with the PMEB and adopted its syllabus, which is overseen by religious scholars, and the model madrasah project is backed by a grant of 30 million rupees (US$500,000).

Official intervention

The good intentions and progressive outlook however have not disguised the fact that Pakistan's Islamic clergy see the project as official intervention in an area that has long been autonomous.

According to Dr Khalid Rehman, executive director of the Institute of Policy Studies, an independent Islamabad-based think tank, the clergy believe that it is the international pressure bearing down o­n upon the Pakistani government, in the aftermath of the events of Sept 11, 2001, which is forcing them to compromise their independence.

International concern centred o­n the approximately 10,000 madrasahs operating in Pakistan and their million-plus students, many of were believed to have been involved militancy in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

To mitigate these concerns, in January 2002 Musharraf announced comprehensive reforms to religious education.

He couched the move in practical terms. "To me, students of religious schools should be brought into the mainstream of society," he had said.

Musharraf also banned seven militant groups allegedly involved in terrorism and which, it was reported, funded some of the madrasahs.

In addition, in June 2002, the Deeni Madaris (Voluntary Registration and Regulation) Ordinance 2002 was approved.

Sectarian hatred

Key provisions of the new law required religious schools to register with the PMEB and to have their sources of funding monitored, and that anyone found teaching sectarian hatred in a madrasah could be jailed for two years.

In a tactical move, the Musharraf government has with the model madrasah project adopted a long-term approach - the poor in this country of 140 million have traditionally turned to madrasahs so that their children receive instruction.

With the government now stepping in, the desire of parents that their children receive an affordable education that will increase their employability is being addressed. Hence the model schools provide free education and boarding facilities until post-graduate study.

It can make a difference to families like Kanwal's. She has nine siblings and her father, a low-income air-force officer, cannot dream of sending his children to an elite English-medium school - whose fees range between rupees US$250 and US$350 dollars a month.

As it is, he feels the pinch even from Urdu-medium government schools although the fees are no more than 50 rupees (86 cents) a month.

More than family budgets, a key factor that will help determine the success or failure of the model madrasah initiative is the opposition from the clergy.

"There is mistrust among the madrasah establishment as in the past the government has never given any grant and their (the madrasah) activities were financed by public donations," said Dr Rehman.

The new largesse for the project is therefore seen as all the more suspicious, and the reaction to the government's move came early in the form of resistance from religious parties to the Deeni Madaris Ordinance.

Now, with the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal - a coalition of religious parties - in power in two out of Pakistan's four provinces, that law, according to an official dealing with the issue, has been pushed into the background.

Differing perceptions

More worrisome are the differing perceptions of those in the three systems - English-medium, Urdu-medium and religious schools.

A survey was carried out during December 2002 and January 2003 of tenth-grade students and their teachers in the three systems by Tariq Rehman, a professor in Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University.

He found the difference between those attending Islamic schools and those in English-medium schools alarming: "Most young people do not want a war in Kashmir, but the young Islamists do support it. Moreover, most of our young people are biased against minorities."

"Are we about to witness the revolt of the dispossessed using the idea of religious superiority?" he asked. "And if this happens, can Pakistan survive?"

Kanwal and her classmates could hold some of the answers, provided the model madrasah turns out to be more durable than the politics that founded it. - IPS