Kerala - Kochi   

Educational inequity high in State: expert

K.P.M. Basheer

Abusaleh Shariff

KOCHI: Kerala may be the most literate State in India, but educational inequity is acute here, says Abusaleh Shariff, who was member-secretary of the Rajinder Sachar committee on social, economic and educational status of Muslims in India.

“There is universal schooling in Kerala, but educational equity ends by the close of primary education,” Dr. Shariff, quoting the findings of the committee, told The Hindu on Saturday. He was here to give a talk on ̶ 0;Sachar report and its implications” at the South Indian Muslim Convention for Social Justice, which discussed the findings of the committee.

As the educational levels went up, the divide between communities, particularly between Muslims and the rest, became wider. “Kerala, perhaps, has the worst educational inequity in India at very high levels of education,” Dr. Shariff, Chief Economist and Senior Professor, National Council for Applied Economic Research, said.

Dr. Shariff said the committee had found that only about 30 per cent of Muslim children in Kerala made it to the 10th class against 65 per cent of other communities. The case of Muslim girls was even worse. Dalits and Muslims were in the same boat as regards educational inequity.

He called for constructive, affirmative actions by the State Government to correct the educational bias.

On the national scene, he said the Muslim community was better off in the south than in the north, where millions of Muslim children had no access to even primary education.

“There are thousands of Muslim mohallas and hamlets where there is not a single school or even an anganwadi,” he said.

West Bengal was the worst in terms of backwardness of Muslims. The fact that Muslims’ share was only 2 per cent in West Bengal Government services, though 25 percent of the population was Muslim, showed the extent of inequity.

Referring to the economic boom in the country, Dr. Shariff warned that Muslims would miss the bus unless their educational status leapfrogged. They should focus on acquiring low-tech education and upgrading skills to get jobs and be part of the boom, he suggested. However, there were barriers in the system to Muslims’ acquiring a decent education.

“There are a lot of educational institutions in North India that do not offer admission application forms to Muslims, let alone admission,” he said.

Prejudice and bias against Muslims were so rampant in the bureaucracy that most Muslim youths believed that even if they acquired a decent education, it would be hard to enter the formal employment sector.

The Sachar committee had also found that there was extensive discrimination against Muslims in lending by banks and financial institutions.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Educational inequity high in State: expert
City Corporation to intensify garbage clearance activities
‘Quota needed for uplift of Muslims’
Zooming in on cinema
Meeting with hospitals today
A step towards computer literacy
Call to provide better urology care
Workshop on origami
Reading week from June 19
Green drive
Two arrested on charge of vehicle theft
Power disruption

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu