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Monitoring Committee of Minority Education to get statutory backing

Anita Joshua

— Photo: Sandeep Saxena

HRD Minister Arjun Singh with Minister of State M.A. Fatmi at a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI: A bill to give statutory backing to the National Monitoring Committee of Minority Education (NMCME) will be introduced in the coming session of Parliament. This piece of legislation in being drafted in view of a resolution passed by NMCME to ensure that it does not become defunct in the absence of a favourable dispensation at the Centre.

While making this demand, NMCME — which met here on Thursday — pointed out that the monitoring mechanism had not been set up for a decade since 1994. Disclosing the Ministry’s intent to bring the Bill in the next session, Union Minister for Human Resource Development Arjun Singh underscored the fact that the proposal to set up such a mechanism was first mooted by the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and adopted in 1986 as part of the National Education Policy.

Briefing journalists, Mr. Singh said efforts were being made to set up a Central Madrasa Board.

Asked what the Ministry planned to do about the decision of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrassa Education (UPBME) to ban co-education in madrasas across the State, the Minister, said NMCME members raised the issue at the meeting. They wondered how could such a decision be made in this day and age, the Minister said, adding that it was a regressive move.

Responding to a demand from the Christian community to extend the mid-day meal programme to unaided institutions in tribal districts, the Ministry has decided to set up a committee under the Union School Education Secretary to study the financial implications of such a move.

As to whether the Ministry felt let down by The Scheduled Castes and The Scheduled Tribes (Reservation in Posts and Services) Bill, 2008 — which exempts 47 institutions including those of national importance and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) from reserving faculty posts higher than the lowest grade of Group `A’ for SCs and STs — Mr. Singh said: “There is still hope.”

Pointing out that the Lok Sabha was yet to pass the Bill, the Minister sought to cap further questioning on the Bill by asking journalists not to try to trip him into saying something controversial. “I think a little more patience is required,” he added when journalists persisted with questions on the Bill about which the HRD Ministry has reservations.

Besides the Indian Institutes of Technology and IIMs, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, the National Institutes of Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Allahabad University, the Banaras Hindu University, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (Pondicherry), National Library (Calcutta), Victoria Memorial (Calcutta), Vishwa Bharati, and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (Chandigarh) are among the 47 institutions which have been exempted from the reservation policy as per the Bill.

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