JOIN USThe Centre on Monday reviewed the state of education in minority communities of the country and noted that states lack in the implementation of various schemes of the Union government.
At a day-long meeting of the National Monitoring Committee on Minority Education (NMCME), Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal said states were lacking in implementing schemes meant to promote education among minority communities even after sanctioning of funds by the Centre.
“Since most of the schemes are implemented through the state, there is a need for the state governments to take proactive steps to ensure proper implementation of the schemes,” he said.
The panel, headed by the HRD minister, decided to set up five different sub-committees to look into the issues and suggest remedial measures.
Each of the sub-committees will separately look into the implementation of schemes aimed at promoting education among minorities and issue of addressing grievances of the community, vocational education and skill development, promotion of Urdu learning through enhanced employment opportunities, girls’ education, and mapping of education requirement of the minorities. The sub-committees will meet in April-May and present their reports in the next meeting of the NMCME, proposed to be held in June.
The decision was taken following members of NMCME voicing various concerns including low participation of members of the minority communities especially Muslims in higher education, and lack of proper institutional arrangements to promote education among the community.
Addressing the meeting, Minister of State for Human Resource Development E Ahmed noted that the “existing arrangements” were inadequate and there was need to create a sub-plan provision for minority community in the 12th Five Year Plan in general and sub-plan for minority education in particular.
The scale of government interventions is too small to touch the large numbers of minorities who are deprived of the benefits.
The allocation of financial resources to major schemes pertaining to education specifically targeted to minorities for 11th Five Year Plan is also limited.
“Even though the general expenditure on education would also be benefitting the minority community but when we emphasise on affirmative action and device schemes specifically targeted to them, these provisions are too meagre an amount to cater to specific education needs of 19 per cent population,” he said.
Speaking at the meeting, Najeeb Jung, the vice-chancellor of Jamia Milia Islamia University, suggested course development of Madrassas by the NCERT. He also said that a mechanism has to be devised so that issues are addressed keeping in view with the larger interest of minority education.