mainstream students do not treat them as their equal counterparts, and their attires (robes with beard) often show case them as fundamentalists or conservative. However, the efficacy and significance of madrassa education is questionable. Provided that the origin of madrassa education was offering a religious education, a good understanding of Islam and Quran to the students, the current educational scheme stands quite unsatisfactory from that regards. The gist of the madrassa education (the core courses that differ from the board curriculum are Arabic literature (biography, short stories, poems, ethical texts, urdu and farsi sher etc) and grammar. At the ibtedayi level the students are mainly given the foundations in the Arabic and farsi/urdu language so that they are well prepared to understand and study the courses at the dakhil stage. The Secondary level madrasa education comprises Arabic literature, learning to study the Quran, discerning its meaning (tafsir), learning the sharia laws, and fiqh. They also study various interpretations and explanations of the Quranic texts, which are in urdu and farsi, also sometimes in Arabic. The sharia law taught in the madrassa curriculum is the pure traditionalist classical law, devoid of the updated information and reforms undertaken in the Islamist countries. Thus the madrassa education in Bangladesh is very traditionalist, denying the students to derive a liberal and modern understanding of the Islamic studies. English Medium Students Students According to the personal accounts of a 12th standard A-level student from the Maple Leaf International School, the English medium students have their own distinct style: their studies, their attitude, their thought process are very different. This has a lot to do with the institutional environment and the curricula. The teachers encourage them to speak in English: this is seen as a tool to succeed in life, it is seemed to be more ‘sophisticated’. They perceive that people studying Bangla medium ( Board curriculum) are often not sophisticated- they don’t have sophisticated manners, they cannot speak properly, they are not well off financially which makes them detached from the English medium society. The O-Levels examinations have made Bangla a compulsory subject, yet the course contents of Bangla are less than satisfactory. The students only have to answer some translations, an essay, a comprehension from an unseen passage. They are not introduced to Bangla literature: they do not Page | 43