11th Plan to stress on Muslim education

Education of Muslims especially girls will find a prominent place in the 11th Five Year Plan and it would be the key step towards uplift of Muslims apart from the 15-point programme announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Commission officials said the action plan targeting education for Muslims, especially girls was in the making.

Planning Commission Advisor K Panda said the 15-point programme was already there and the Plan would incorporate it.

Top priority would be given to education, and solutions arrived at by the working group set up by the Commission would reflect this priority, he said.

The intent of the Commission is obvious in the draft approach paper itself, which has for the first time, made a special mention of the minorities along with SC/ST.

The paper says, in a special section called `Bringing on par: SC/ST and minorities and other left behind', "some minorities have fallen far behind the national average in education. It will be necessary to go to the root of the problem and examine the reasons for the decline so that remedial measures can be taken through the 11th Plan.

The paper itself says that at the minimum, the minority dominated areas would need special focus in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and schemes for creating infrastructure facilities.

The Comission said methods to incentivise minority students to enroll and complete education were being worked out.

As part of the programme, Central assistance would be provided for recruitment and posting of Urdu language teachers in primary and upper primary schools that served a population in which at least one-fourth belonged to that language group.

Provision of resources for the modernisation of Madarasa education would also be looked at by the Plan as indicated in the approach paper.

The focus on education stems from the wide gulf between education levels of Muslims and the general population in the country reflecting in the near absence of Muslims in most sectors of employment.

The prime minister's high-level committee on the social, economic and educational status of Muslims, chaired by Justice Rajinder Sachar is expected to submit its report on the status of Muslims in the country tomorrow.

The committee has already been reported as saying that 80 per cent of urban Muslim boys are enrolled in schools, compared to 90 per cent of Dalits and 95 per cent of others. Muslim women have been cited as forming just one per cent of all women graduates in the country.

In the rural areas, just 68 per cent of Muslim girls are at school, compared to 72 per cent of Dalit girls and 80 per cent of others.

The discrimination Muslims face in respect of jobs has also been documented by the committee which says that in the 12 states, where the Muslims' share in total population is 15.4 per cent, their representation in government jobs is a tiny 5.7 per.