The problem in Pakistan is not the madrasahs

According to many experts.

As Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group told RFE/RL:

"It is the secular education that needs to be improved. If people in Pakistan are given a choice, they will send their children to the better-run schools -- no matter what their religious convictions are. Wealthy and well-educated Pakistanis do not go to madrasahs. They go to a whole host of other schools, but certainly not madrasahs. What is needed is a state system that provides opportunities for far more people than it currently does."

Of course that's not to deny, as Templer goes on to note:

"There are a small number of very extreme madrasahs like the Red Mosque that need to be closed down," Templer says. "These are institutes that are fostering sectarian violence. They've caused thousands of deaths in the past decades. They are training militants. They are preaching hatred. They are a source of dangerous publications, tape recordings, preachings. These need to be closed down. I don't think any modern state could tolerate essentially vigilante armies in its own territory operating in this way. And I don't think these madrasahs are 'reformable' as such. They need to be closed down."

But as as the RFE/RL continued:

"We can see how the madrasahs have responded to the [Red Mosque] crisis," [Rasul Baksh] Rais[, a newspaper columnist and political scientist] says. "The federation of religious institutions has cut the two madrasahs [at the Red Mosque complex] from their [accreditation] list. They cut them off the list and they did not give them any legitimacy or any recognition. We don't see any uprisings at any major madrasahs throughout the country.