Secular schools have higher graduation rates than madras schools

Stats belittled by madras leaders as 'damn lies'

SAN JOSE (RWN) - A study conducted by researchers at San Jose Islamic University found that high school students attending secular schools graduated at a higher rate than those who attend madrases.

Students who attended secular high schools had a five-year graduation rate of 94 percent, while students who attended madras, or religious, schools had a five-year graduation rate of 74 percent.

"It was shocking to us," said Hart Hankes, the professor who led the research. "We always thought and it's always been the conventional wisdom that the superior discipline and harsher punishments at the madrases have made for better graduation rates, but we've now found that not true."

Mullah Akbar, the head of the Madras Educational Society, dismissed the study as "foolish."

"The academics in their ivory towers can do all the research they want," the mullah said. "They're wrong. The students turned out by madrases are superior in every way to the ones the secular schools put out."

One reason the graduation rate may be lower, the mullah said, is that students at madras high schools often leave after only four years to join the Black Robes or the Army.

"They feel it is more important to save Allah than it is to have book learning, and I am inclined to agree with them. This republic needs strong arms to lift it, not eyes that are weak from reading."

Hankes' study also looked at outcomes of the students. Students from secular schools tended to make more money over time than those educated at madras schools.

"We expected that, since the madras prepares you for a religious path, and there's not a lot of money in that," Hankes said. "But we didn't expect such a big disparity in the first year after high school." Students who graduated from secular high schools made an average of $150 more a week in their first job than madras-educated students.

"When we did some informal follow-up interviews with employers, we found a great many of them thought the madras students were more disciplined than secular students, the madras students didn't work as long, and spent too much time proselytizing."

Mullah Akbar dismissed that allegation, too.

"That's what a good Muslim should be doing," he said. "Sharing the faith and protecting it. Not clearing tables or inflating tires."


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