MUSLIM EDUCATION

Ahmedabad Muslims are deprived of the facilities for education and other civic amenities. Though this is evident from a cursory look at Juhapura, the biggest ghetto of Muslims in Ahmedabad, a survey by NGO, Sadbhav Mission has said it in so many words.

Though Juhapura has a population of around 2.5 lakh, with 6,000 added to this figure every year, there are only four government primary schools and not a single government high school in the area, said Prof. Vipin Tripathi, a representative of the Sadbhav Mission.

The research team, which was headed by Tripathi, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, highlighted the fact that the four government primary schools in Juhapura are able to enroll only 10 per cent of the children in the locality in the first standard, while there are only four classrooms for every 818 students.

"Lack of classrooms often leads to students of various classes sharing the physical space of a single room, leading to cacophony, chaos and learning difficulties. While the schools conduct two shifts in order to accommodate all the students, classes are also held on the school verandahs," Tripathi said.
"There is a serious problem of lack of space. The schools are not able to accommodate all the students. Though around 6,000 children are born in Juhapura annually, there are not enough schools to accommodate them in the secondary and higher-secondary levels.

Taking all the higher-secondary schools in the area into consideration, only around 500 children can be accommodated in class XII in a year," said Mehrunnissa M. Desai, vice-principal of the R. J. Tibrewal Commerce College, who assisted in the research.

In addition to the research study, the Sadbhav Mission has been making an attempt to increase the intake in primary and high schools, and has been trying to implement the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for minorities. "In the course of our research and inquiries, we found that the Gujarat Government has not yet adopted the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme while it is being run by 20 different state governments in the country," Tripathi informed.

"Inquiries with the Central Government reveal that the Gujarat Government demands 100 per cent funding against the present norm of 75 : 25 Centre-State sharing. The officials in the Ministry of Minority Affairs point out that the Gujarat Government expressed its inability to implement the scheme until 100 per cent grant (against the current Central contribution of 75 per cent) was provided by the Centre.

They were also told that the Gujarat Government finds the scheme discriminatory as the value of scholarship is higher than the ones given to SC/ST and OBC.

When a few local NGO representatives contacted the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) and Dept of Social Justice and Empowerment, at Delhi, and raised the point of objection from the Gujarat Government, it was explained that the SC/ ST and OBC scholarships at pre-matric level are given by the states and they can raise the amount to any desired level and even bring it on par with the Central scholarships. Disparity cited by the Gujarat Government was a lame excuse and could not be held as a valid ground not to implement the Minority Pre-Matric Scholarship schemes.
The Central Government has scholarship scheme for wards of those engaged in unclean occupations. For students in first to 4th standard, it provides Rs. 40 a month for maintenance and Rs. 550 ad-hoc grant, amounting to an annual payout of Rs. 950 as against Rs. 1000 of the minority scholarship.

Juhapura, referred to as the largest Muslim ghetto in Gujarat, has a few schools started by Muslim trusts too, but even there the number of seats is far from being sufficient to meet the requirements of the over three lakh population estimated to live there. The Government has not bothered to open any higher secondary school in Juhapura. All colleges are in Hindu-dominated localities, and parents feel it unsafe to send their children there. The few municipal schools in Juhapura do not have an environment conducive for learning either, says Mehrunnisa. "Gambling goes on in one of the schools, and there is so much riff-raff that parents don't want to send their children to study".

The government schools severely lack in facilities. Children do not have even mat or carpets (durries) to sit and have to squat on the ground. The quality of blackboards are extremely poor. The Gyaspur Bhatha Primary School’s one of the biggest in the area, has over 800 students with 16 teachers but only four classrooms. The school runs in two shifts with two classes running in a single room and a few in the corridors. 'If we do not treat children with dignity and teach them with care how could we expect them to go to schools', remarked a teacher.

Communal holocaust has caused ghettoisation in Gujarat with Muslims coming to reside in certain areas. But government follows the policy of neglecting those areas by curtailing or stopping sanitation and health facilities. Juhapura and Bombay Hotel areas best personify the policies. Some NGOs allege that that the government was following a policy of 'Muslim free zones' in Gujarat.
Gujarat has several biradries (communities) of Muslims. Twenty eight were declared OBC under the government reservation policies, but individuals from these communities find it next to impossible to enter the government services. Sometimes, the admissions on the basis of caste certificates are cancelled after two to three years thereby ruining their academic prospects.

Urdu, as a medium of education, is finding few takers in the Mumbai city. As many as 454 students have dropped out from the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) Urdu medium schools since last year. The dropouts rates amongst Muslim managed Urdu medium schools are even higher. On the other hand the English and Hindi medium schools have seen a rise in number of enrolments.

Officials said parents no longer wanted to limit their wards' future to the Urdu language and were opting for English medium schools. “Students are more attracted to the English medium because of the increasing importance of the language, better quality education and the opportunities it offers,” said Abasaheb Jadhav, the education officer of the civic body.

The elite amongst Muslim community think education to poor section of the community either must be delivered by government schools or community managed private schools. The qualities of education in both are abysmally low.

Because of the poor quality of educations in Urdu medium schools, these Muslims either lose interest in education and drop out or not able to get admission in good colleges. In the process even after graduation they are unemployable. Thus generations and generations of Muslims are been consigned to the life long pit of abject poverty.

Why the quality of education in community managed schools is very poor? The most important factor is the lackadaisical approach of teachers. In fact many of these teachers don't even deliver the minimum content in the class room and forget about motivating the students.

Majority of these teachers being either the Government servants or paid by the Municipal Corporation, feel secured in their jobs and can neither be punished or removed, hence the rampant dismal performance.

In a survey by TRAC (Trend Research and Analysis Centre), 29 per cent of the teachers in the Muslim managed schools are present but not teaching. They have one or the other pretext not to teach but chat in the staff room. Even the new law does nothing to improve teacher accountability. Teacher unions are powerful, so community leadership dare not discipline errant teachers
Currently, thousands and thousands of Muslim children complete school without being able to read simple paragraphs or do basic math inspite of the fact that community is spending substantial resources in managing these schools

Muslim children from richer families perform better because they get private tuition in the evening. In the absence of motivation or accountability, teaching in community managed schools is so pathetic that many poor parents in urban slums send their kids to high fee-charging private schools managed by other communities, rather than subsidized community managed schools.

India has an estimated one million Muslim students in first grade, majority of them in the community managed private schools. Each year another 50 lakhs Muslim children will be added as the first batch moves to second grade. The actual number could be even higher.

What is the remedy? There are no quick fixes or short term solution. Need is to study the problem in detail. What's the problem in conducting the in-depth study? The major problem is that most of the Muslim managed schools are under the control of public trusts, whose trustees are professionals, businessman, or local politician. Since they are preoccupied with their own profession very few trustees are able to give quality time managing the affairs of their schools.

Even the little time they spare, gets consumed by administrative issues or discussing the financial problems. Very few trustees have interest about improving the quality of education. There are hundreds of educational trusts in Maharashtra, very few including Mumbai based Anjuman Islam has appointed a professionally trained and competent person to improve the academic standards in schools. Anjuman Islam has appointed a retired Principal to look after improving the education standards in all their schools.

Unless and until they involve competent professionals to look into various aspects and issues related to improving the quality of education, the problem of substandard education in these schools is not going to be solved.

A recent TRAC study revealed the following issues responsible for the substandard quality of education in Muslim managed schools.

i. Selection procedure for the appointment of teachers is not taken seriously by most of the management. The entire selection exercise is done in a haphazard manner leading to poor selection
ii. Majority of the trust do not have teachers' performance appraisal in place. Thus there is no accountability amongst teachers.

iii. Except couple of trusts, most of them do not conduct any motivation and skill enhancement workshop for principals and teachers.

Ask any principal the reason for the poor performance of the Muslim managed schools, the two common reasons given are lack of adequate infrastructure and large number of students in a class room. These are the major problems but the real issue is the lack of interest amongst teacher fraternity to bring in the quality change.

When community can have a huge and well maintained mosque why the community fails to to maintain the schools? When it comes to mosque the community is proactive in its maintenance and ensuring the sanctity. But with respect to the schools, the same proactive involvement is totally absent. The zeal and contribution shown for the survival and the maintenance of the madrasas is totally absent with respect to the survival and maintenance of community managed schools. One of the reasons is that community has become totally dependent on the government salary and non salary grants.

Unless and until community take a Proactive interest in the affairs of the schools and help build a quality infrastructure, the future of Muslim managed school look bleak and very difficult to prevent it from certain closure.