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The Council of European jamaats sponsored four Madressa teachers to attend the Orlando Retreat - Madrasah Drive for Excellence Program organised by The Islamic Education Board of NASIMCO. Zainabbai Kanji, one of the European Madressa teachers who attended the Reatreat submitted the following report of the issues discussed at the Retreat: Library and Administration Software for the use of Madaris: Madressa administration and Library software have been published by Br. Salim Jaffer and Br. Raza Dhanji respectively. An overview of the application and benefits of these softwares were presented by the brothers. Participants were also given the opportunity to discuss what steps would be necessary to keep record of an efficient student data and the needs of setting up an Islamic library within the Madressa ensuring full use made by the students. During the workshops it was noted that a good up and running library has already been set up by the madressa in LA. Another participant suggested that in South Africa the Madaris did not have a separate library but that an Islamic section was set up in the public library for the use of all.
Sample Resource Paper: Shaykh Hasnain Kassamali and Br. Liyakat Takim have compiled resource papers to provide madaris teachers with an in depth knowledge of curriculum related topics. These papers are produced as research material and not designed to be used as classroom notes. Shaykh Kassamali welcomed all those who would like to contribute towards writing these resource papers.
Sample Lesson Plan: Mrs Shabnum Dewji presented lesson plans to the teachers to show how the information from the resource papers could be fed into lesson plans. She is planning to compile more plans related to other curriculum topics. These would be ava.ilable for teachers to use in the future.
A Colloqium on Spirituality: Br. Hamid Mavani, Br. Mohammed Rajmohammed, Br. Liyakat Takim, dr. Hussein Khimjee and Maulana Banglori, each presented their view on how spirituality can be obtained and taught to the students in the madaris. The Poor was then open for discussion. This was a useful topic and well presented. It was concluded that it is important to enhance spirituality amongst our students in our madaris and that the teachers would need to show the children what is spirituality and how it can be obtained by introducing it into their lessons.
Africa Federation Representative: Dr Manekia appealed to NASIMCO and the participants to help their madaris achieve the teaching levels attained by the participating Madaris. He expressed that they were having difficulty in teaching Islamic culture and knowledge to their children and that they did not have qualified teachers to train their teachers.
Catering for Special Needs Children in Madressa:
This was presented by myself. I gave them an overview of what is special educational needs and the different types of special educational needs children we would come across in our Madaris. This was then followed by how the Madaris could cater for such needs?
Assessment and Evatuation Techniques: Ms Sakina Dewji organised a workshop to teach the participants how to assess and evaluate students' work. This was then followed by techniques of report writing and how evaluation could feed into it. This was a very useful and informative presentation.
Parenting Skills: Dr. Batul Ladak discussed parenting skills necessary for the upbringing of children from the point of view of a professional in a medical field. This was then complimented by Shaykh Kassamali who discussed the same issue from the Islamic perspective. |
