The Council Of European Jamaats

The first meeting after many years of Heads of Madaaris in Europe was held by The Council of European Jamaat’s Education Committee and hosted by Stanmore Shia Ithna Asheri Madressah (SIM) on Sunday April 29th. The meeting was well attended by Heads and administrators from Madaaris across Europe.

The meeting commenced with a tour of the host Madrasah in action. The brothers were shown around by Shafiquebhai Govani, Principal of SIM and Zeeshanbhai Kanji, vice principle. The ladies were shown around by Sister Fehmidabai Merali, the lady coordinator at SIM. During the course of the tour, ideas were exchanged and the heads had an opportunity to see how SIM dealt with classes of different levels. The tour also led to fruitful discussions on syllabus and teaching techniques.

The meeting was facilitated by Sister Marziyahbai Panju from Enriched Solutions. Marziyahbai is a trained educationalist holding a MA Ed with many years of classroom experience. Marziyahbai gave an insight on her upcoming book “Seven successful strategies to promote emotional intelligence in the class room” and how to use pupil voices to enhance teaching and learning. The discussion was then on the issued raised and one could see the energy amongst the participants as they started sharing the success and challenges they faced at their respective Madaaris.

During the discussions, the need of a centralized database where subject wise information and lecture notes can be accessed was found to be in high demand, as well as a new approach to the current syllabus to face the demands of a changing world. Ideas for recruiting of new teachers and supplying teachers training were also discussed and shared amongst other things.

A plenary was then held were the participants shared their gains from the meeting. An aura of respect and understanding towards the other Madaaris was conveyed by the participants, expressing a desire to continue working together. The participants were enthusiastic when discussing the prospect of continuing with a series of meetings, and the Head of Zainabiyya Madrasah in Milton Keynes, Hasnainbhai Kara suggested that the next meeting will be hosted by their institution.

Finally, the participants were given copies of the notes that resulted from the discussion, and SIM gifted copies of their syllabus on CD and a teacher’s handbook to the participants.