BBC, 11 Jan 08: Bid to Transform Afghan Madrassas
The Afghan government has changed its policy on madrassas, the religious schools that inspired a generation of fundamentalists who became the Taliban.

Rather than trying to freeze them out, it is trying to bring them into the state system, providing they widen their syllabus to teach other subjects.

The Education Minister Hanif Atmar says: "We are critical of policies in the past. Actually it was a result of those policies to exclude these madrassas, keep them on the margin of the society, and then entirely hand them over to the fundamentalists.".....
For those new to the subject: Islamic Religious Schools, Madrasas: Background