This year around 41,000 students have registered from madrasahs compared to the last year’s figure of 31,000 — a jump of 10,000 students.

There are 36,000 students enrolled in High Madrasas, where students are taught all subjects very much like any other board with two compulsory papers in Islamic Studies and Arabic language. The number of students in Senior Madrasas, where more emphasis is laid on religious education like Alim, Fazil and Kamil, are about 5,000.

“The increase in the number of students is because of the quality of education that is offered by madrasahs in the state and the acceptance of the madrasa system of education by the people in the state,” said Sohrab Hussain, the president of the West Bengal Board of Madrasa Education.

In recent years, various initiatives have been taken to modernise the education in the madrasas. The board and the West Bengal government has identified 10 madrasas across the state as ‘model madrsas’. The board, along with the department of Minority affairs and Madrasa education of the state government, is working with Wipro Technologies on the pilot project to pool in resources in the institute and to see what changes are evident in the institutions.

Apart from this, the board has introduced computers in 42 madrasas and plans to increase the figure to 100 by this year. While there are 558 madrasas in the state, students from only 506 madrsas will appear for the board examination.

The board, meanwhile, has decided to postpone the Class X examination to February 24, 2009. Earlier, the board had decided to conduct the examination on February 10.